Franz Von Suppé Philharmonia Promenade Orchestra Henry Krips Ouvertüren (1957, CD Reissue 1990)

Nicholas McGegan has been called a “Handel master” by The San Francisco Chronicle and is considered a foremost Handel interpreter throughout the world. So who better to present the rarely performed Joseph and his Brethren than Nicholas McGegan and Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale? Handel’s unfairly neglected—yet splendid—oratorio depicts the grandeur of Pharaoh’s court in an intriguing plot of familial conflict and mistaken identity. With a cast of favorites including Diana Moore and Nicholas Phan, Nicholas McGegan and his historically informed Orchestra and Chorale present a lively studio recording of the program that delighted audiences and critics alike.

Sparkling performances of Mozart's piano concertos No.18 and No.19 by keyboard virtuoso Melvyn Tan, "that princeling among fortepianists" (San Francisco Examiner). "Nimble, thoughtful musicianship… a sweet, crystalline tone" - San Francisco Chronicle "Two of the most seductive Mozart performances available" - Chicago Tribune

This commemoration of the 300th anniversary of the death of Biber is subtitled ‘In the midst of life we are in death’ and divided into ‘Vita’ and ‘Mors’. The ‘Life’ section consists of the Mass interspersed with all but two of the pieces by other composers listed above; ‘Death’ wraps the Praeludium and Lassus’s Media vita… round the Requiem.

Like many of his German and Austrian contemporaries, Bohemian-born composer Heinrich von Biber was strongly influenced by the Italian school of violin composition that included Biagio Marini (1587-1665) and Marco Uccellini (1603-1680). A noted virtuoso himself, Biber and his teacher Johann Heinrich Schmelzer (1621-1680) were two of the most important figures of the late seventeenth-century Viennese violin style. Biber's keen understanding of the technical and expressive possibilities of the instrument is evident in his innovative use of pizzicato (plucking of the string with the finger), double and triple stops (more than one note played at once creating "chords"), col legno (stick of the bow on the string), sul ponticello (played close to the bridge), and, especially, scordatura (intentional "mistuning" of the strings). Scordatura allowed the performer to play chords in particular keys more easily, extended the range of notes, and provided more open strings in order to negotiate the difficulty of polyphonic writing for a single instrument. Biber's imaginative and original use of these techniques or special effects brought violin virtuosity to an entirely new level of musical expression in the Baroque period. It can be argued that J. S. Bach's masterful Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin, written in 1720, are direct descendants of Biber's grounding breaking Mystery or Rosary Sonatas, composed nearly a quarter of a century earlier.

This CD is a well-chosen sample of Biber’s finest ensemble music. One of the supreme violinists and virtuoso composers of the 17th century, much of Biber's work remains underplayed and relatively obscure. However, as Burnley wrote, over 100 years after many of the pieces on this disc were composed, ‘of all the violin players of the last century Biber seems to have been the best, and his solos are the most difficult and most fanciful of any music I have seen of the same period’.

Biber's 15 Mystery Sonatas with their additional Passacaglia for unaccompanied violin were written in about 1678 and dedicated to his employer, the Archbishop of Salzburg. Each Sonata is inspired by a section of the Rosary devotion of the Catholic Church which offered a system of meditation on 15 Mysteries from the lives of Jesus and the Virgin Mary. The music isn't, strictly speaking, programmatic, though often vividly illustrative of events which took place in the life of Christ.

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.

"Les Sonates du Rosaire" forment l'un des cycles les plus originaux jamais composés pour le violon et qui fit la célébrité de Biber jusqu'à nos jours. Utilisant un accord du violon différent (scordatura) dans chacune de ses 15 sonates - toutes interprétées sur le même instrument d'Amati -, ce cycle représente le sommet de l'invention baroque et du style virtuose du XVIIe siècle. Distingué par un Gramophone Award, le duo Andrew Manze - Richard Egarr relève ce défi de manière éblouissante. Andrew Manze joue sur un violon Amati, 1700 ; archet de Gerhard Landwehr, Heemstede, 1988 d'après un modèle italien. Ce titre est paru pour la première fois en 2004.

While the more famous Mystery Sonatas have quickly found friends, the 1681 set is still largely unknown. Yet what's immediately noticeable from this premiere recording of the sonatas is that Biber isn't only a legendary virtuoso, probably never bettered in the 17th or 18th centuries, but one of the most inventive composers of his age: bold and exciting, certainly, but also elusive, mercurial and mysterious. Most of the works are preludes, arias and variations of an unregulated nature: improvisatory preludes over naked pedals and lucid arias juxtaposing with eccentric rhetorical conceits are mixed up in an unpredictable phantasm of contrast, and yet at its best it all adds up to a unified structure of considerable potency.

Eduard Melkus brought Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber's (1644-1704) Rosary Sonatas (Rosenkranzsonaten) to new life with his groundbreaking 1967 recording; in the six decades that have passed since then, the pieces, which are as virtuoso as they are meditative in mood, have conquered a firm place in the discographies of ambitious baroque violinists. The Austrian violinist Gunar Letzbor has been considered one of the leading interpreters of this famous cycle since he recorded his interpretation on album for the Arcana label in 1996. The success was overwhelming: the critics were enthusiastic and the recording is still today available in the label's catalogue.