Biber Mystery Sonatas Nos 1 16 Amandine Beyer

Whether we call them ‘Mystery’ or ‘Rosary’ Sonatas, these fifteen pieces crowned by a sublime passacaglia for unaccompanied violin form one of the greatest violinistic masterpieces of the Baroque repertory. This version by Amandine Beyer and Gli Incogniti, derived from a dance project with the Rosas company, leads us into their magical universe through a novel prism: that of movement, to which these pieces are an infinite ode!

With the tonal sweetness of Huggett’s three violins resonating pleasingly through the many double- and multiple-stoppings and her bowing demonstrating a delicious lightness and freedom, she admirably displays her eloquent command of Biber’s sublime and richly symbolic language. Huggett’s [approach] is ravishing in its sonorities, her supporting cast adding significantly to the exotic sounds of the various scordaturas and the overall effect of her intelligent, stylish and expressive playing.

Vivaldi's concerti con molti stromenti are true precursors of the symphony in their amplitude and audacity. In these pieces, the 'Red-haired Priest', a creator of boundless imagination, amused himself by devising literally unheard-of combinations of timbres. In the famous concerto Il Mondo al rovescio (The world upside down), he invited flutes, oboes and harpsichord to double violin and cello in a colourfl whirlwind of parallel octaves. This recording by Amandine Beyer and Gli Incogniti provides an opportunity to discover these incredibly modern compositions.

With these six symphonies dedicated to Baron van Swieten, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach demonstrated his talent for instrumental and expressive genius. Entirely devoid of sentimentality and gratuitous extravagance, they open the doors to both Viennese Classicism and its immediate successor: Romanticism. It was only natural that, after tackling Haydn and the Esterházy princes, Amandine Beyer and Gli Incogniti should investigate this repertoire in which, once again, aristocratic patronage lies at the heart of musical creation.

The Sablé festival, held annually in Sablé-sur-Sarthe in France, has its own recording concern that it uses primarily to expose young early music artists and to support the most interesting of their projects; the Zig-Zag Territoires label provides an outlet for this endeavor. Here is a wholly worthy enterprise: the group Gli Incogniti – led by the fabulous young violinist Amandine Beyer – in a program drawn from various works of mysterious late seventeenth-century violinist Nicola Matteis, its title, False Consonances of Melancholy, fashioned after one of his publications, but not limited to its contents. As Matteis is not a household name, some summary of his place in the scheme of things is not out of order here: born in Naples, possibly contemporary to Heinrich von Biber, Matteis was an itinerant musician in Germany before making his way to London about 1670.

Since the earliest recordings of Biber’s Rosenkranz or Mystery Sonatas made during the 1960s, there has been ever-growing interest in these beautiful pieces and a wealth of recordings. In the dedication to his patron, Max Gandolph, Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg, Biber explained that the subject of each Sonata is a section from the Catholic devotion known as the Rosary. He arranged the 15 Sonatas, scored for violin and continuo, into equal groups of Joyful, Sorrowful and Glorious Mysteries, and concluded the cycle with an unaccompanied Passacaglia which provokes a meditative coda to the 15 central events in Christian history. This piece and the opening sonata of the set are alone in not requiring scordatura – that is, retuning of the violin strings which enables composers to achieve unconventional sounds as well as facilitating some fingerings.