This plunge into the steady stream of Biber releases comes from violinist Anton Steck, an alumnus of the Musica Antiqua Köln period-instrument group. Austria's Heinrich Ignaz von Biber was a brilliant, iconoclastic violinist and composer of the late seventeenth century, hardly known 25 years ago but now the recipient of attention from violinists and casual listeners alike. His Mystery Sonatas collectively depict the Passion story through the unique device of scordatura, or retuning of the violin, which forces the instrument into strange, unearthly textures and moods.
1998 is een bijzonder jaar voor Reinhard Goebel en zijn Musica Antiqua Koln. Dit jaar gedenken zij niet alleen dat Reinhard Goebel de groep 25 jaar geleden oprichtte, maar ook dat zij 20 jaar geleden hun samenwerking begonnen met Archiv Produktion. Hun nieuwste cd "Sonata pro tabula" bevat tafelmuziek om bij te watertanden. Samen met het Flanders Recorder Quartet speelt Musica Antiqua Koln werken van Valentini, Schmelzer en Pezel, steeds afgewisseld met een aantal "A due" voor twee trompetten van Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber.
The opus most decisive for Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber's fame and widely used into the 18th century are the eight sonatas for violin and basso continuo published in 1681. Since the Sonatae unarum fidium by the Viennese violin virtuoso Johann Heinrich Schmelzer, published in 1664, no violin solos of comparable extraordinary compositional and technical ambition had appeared. With his sonatas of 1681, Biber succeeded in setting new standards and achieving a previously unattained synthesis of equally high virtuoso demands, artistic content and compositional technical level. Our exceptional violinist Plamena Nikitassova uses a historical playing technique for her interpretation - a technique that is hardly cultivated any more even among baroque violinists.
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.
A more radiant and gratifyingly robust collection of baroque instrumental works would be hard to imagine. Dedicated to Biber’s patron, Maximilian Gandolph, in the 1676 publication, these 12 sonatas (which broadly translate as ‘sonatas suitable for altar or court’) juxtapose pieces for a rich five- or six-part string palette – pursuing an exhilarating, intensely-wrought, sophisticated and unpredictable musical rhetoric – with quasi-concerted and swaggering trumpets. The two are not mutually exclusive since Biber wrote Sonata VI for a solo trumpet in G minor, a work which stretches the capability of the ‘natural’ instrument and coaxes it into the poignant and refined world of early Italian canzonas.
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.
Bohemian Catholic composer Heinrich Biber was arguably the most distinguished 17th century composer of instrumental music for the church. His output was not extensive but it was extraordinary, especially his best-known opus, The Rosary Sonatas of the 1670s. Depicting the 15 mysteries of the rosary, these works are remarkable for their vivid programmatic nature, the use of extended techniques such as scordatura (retuning of the violin strings), and virtuostic writing (Biber himself was an accomplished violinist).
This must be one of the most evocative, stylish and thoughtful interpretations of anything Biber ever wrote. From the moment it begins with its rich sonorous chords, we know we are in for a treat, and the Rare Fruits Council (what a glorious name!) never disappoints. Many people are well-acquainted with Biber's 'Mystery Sonatas', but these delicious pieces are not quite so familiar. Treat yourself to any available copy - and hope for a reissue from Astree of this version - because if you like the composer, if you like early baroque music, and if you like your playing vigorous, intense, and full of rich harmony and energy, this is for you.
Johann Sebastian Bach, the newly appointed Cantor of the Thomaskirche, undertook his first official journey from Leipzig to nearby Störmthal in 1723, where he and his Thomanerchor inaugurated the beautiful new organ built by Zacharias Hildebrandt, a pupil of Silbermann. Bach was thrilled by the instrument’s splendid timbres and tonal beauty. A particularly beautiful violin was made by the German luthier David Tecchler in Rome — 1400 km from Störmthal — during that same year. Both instruments have survived and have been excellently restored; now, three hundred years after their creation, they meet for the first time.