Tartini: The Devil's Sonata and Other Works
This is one of the craziest classical CDs you will ever hear, but the madness is  inspired. Andrew Manze, following a suggestion in one of Tartini's letters, gets rid of the  published accompaniment and plays these pieces on the solo violin. In the other three  works he takes plenty of liberties, but in the famousDevil's TrillSonata he  embellishes, improvises, departs from the text and comes back again. The verbal  description sounds like my idea of a nightmare, but the execution is so inspired that this  is one of the most compelling Baroque performances ever. Whether it is  "authentic" or not, I have no idea, and Manze probably doesn't either. But  this is a recording you will remember.--Leslie Gerber