Violin Sonata in G minor, B.g5, "The Devil's Trill"
Baroque Sonata Violin and Piano
In brief

This G minor sonata feels dramatic and virtuosic, shifting between fiery passages and biting cantabile lines that convey an expressive struggle between impulse and restraint. You will need to focus especially on Trills and ornaments (violin) (3.8/5), which require clean left‑hand finger articulation and exact bow control so each ornament is crisp without obscuring the line, and on Vibrato (3.6/5), which here colors sustained notes without weighing down the phrase, demanding control of both amplitude and speed. A Baroque work, it occupies an important place in Tartini’s violin sonatas as an example of his taste for virtuosity coupled with lyrical expressiveness. I do not give a reference interpretation because I prefer not to offer a recording name unless I am certain of it for this particular piece.

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Sheet music

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Formation

Violin and piano · 2 performers

Required forces
Violin 1 performers
Piano 1 performers
Playable parts
Violin Piano
MusicCoach difficulty
85/100
Master repertoire
Likely range : 78–92/100
Confidence : 48% · to confirm
BeginnerIntermediateAdvancedVirtuoso
Exam grade
About grade 8

Estimated from our difficulty score, not taken from an exam syllabus. Checked against 333 works on the ABRSM syllabus: the exact grade is right 7 times out of 10, and within one grade 99 times out of 100.

Difficulty estimate by MusicCoach on a scale of 1 to 100.

Where this work sits
050100

Most works cluster between 45 and 65: a small score gap often marks a real step. The highlighted bar shows this work among those for the same instrument.

The MusicCoach difficulty measures a work's overall demands (technique, reading, stamina) on a shared 0-100 scale, consolidated from editorial and pedagogical reference points (Henle, exam syllabuses, curation) and our own analyses. It measures neither musical value nor the practice time YOU will need: two musicians of the same level can experience the same work very differently depending on their strengths (hands used to octaves, quick sight-reading…). The confidence reflects how many reference points sit behind the score and how well they agree — a lightly documented score is flagged “to validate”. For a truly personal bearing, the diagnostic and your space compare each work to YOUR estimated level, which the score alone cannot do.

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Difficulty sources
MusicCoach expertise
82
82/100 normalised
Relative difficulty
100%
Among Giuseppe Tartini
99%
Era Baroque
99%
Genre
Estimated skills
Ornaments
Trills and ornaments (violin)
1
Theory
Harmonic analysis
1
Theory
Knowledge of forms
1
Technique
Bow legato
1
Tone
Vibrato
1
Reading
Bass clef reading
1
Style
Baroque style
1
Ornaments
Baroque ornaments
2
Technique
Position changes
1
Technique
Double stops
1
Technique
Fast passages
1
Interpretation
Phrasing
1
Rhythm
Tempo rubato
1
Technique
Trills
2
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