Violinsonaten 1681 Franz Biber

Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber & Georg Muffat - Sonatas
Freiburger Barockorchester Consort / Petra Müllejans
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 307 MB | Full Artwork | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Deutsche Harmonia Mundi # 05472778442 | Country/Year: Germany 2002
Genre: Classical | Style: Baroque

…This record is a must for all lovers of this music. Sensibly, the Freiburger Barockorchester Consort do not give us all the Biber sonatas, mixing them with the 2 Muffatt ones. Some purists might prefer a disc which includes all the Biber sonatas, but with such lovely performances here I just hope that we get the rest of the sonatas on another disk.

The technology at our command, the electronic images we see every day, the ease and swiftness of world travel and communication has left modern humans with a waning sense of awe. We can argue about who was or is better off, but for 17th century Europeans, awe-inspiring events happened with some regularity. Pageantry was one of the more effective and popular means to impress a congregation, and there was nothing like a huge celebration in a massive cathedral to remind each person of his place in the grand scheme.

The field of performances competing for your CD purchase dollar has grown crowded in the case of Henrich Ignaz Franz Biber's Mystery Sonatas (or Rosary Sonatas), a set of 16 pieces for solo violin and continuo programatically linked to the Passion story. This performance by violinst Alice Piérot and Les veilleurs de Nuit is part of a remarkable series from France's Alpha label, pairing mostly Baroque works with paintings of the era. The package for this disc shows an image of Mary awaiting the Annunciation, painted around 1475 by the Neapolitan Antonello da Messina.

Biber was one of the most talented and fascinating composers of the 17th century. He spent his life working between Czechoslovakia and Austria, attaining a considerable amount of fame and even earning a patent of nobility (he was permitted later in life to refer to himself as "von" Biber). His instrumental music is the most fanciful and entertaining of the period, partly due to his use of scordatura, or mistuning. This technique requires a different violin-string tuning for each of the seven partitas in this collection, which gives each a particular instrumental color. A partita, by the way, is the same thing as a suite–a selection of dances collected together to make a contrasting set.

Best-selling Arcana title, a reference recording of a milestone of baroque violin literature.Recorded in the beautiful acoustics of the parish church of Hallstatt (Austria), where Gunar Letzbor was born, this personal and dramatic interpretation of Biber's most popular work, usually referred to today as the Mistery or Rosary sonatas, comes back after years of absence.Gunar Letzbor makes his journey through the mysteries or events in the life of the Virgin Mary using two different violins and accompanied by no fewer than six musicians playing kaleidoscopic combinations of harpsichord, organ, lute, archlute, two bass viols and double bass a big continuo group which enhances and intensifies the changing moods of the cycle.

Best-selling Arcana title, a reference recording of a milestone of baroque violin literature.Recorded in the beautiful acoustics of the parish church of Hallstatt (Austria), where Gunar Letzbor was born, this personal and dramatic interpretation of Biber's most popular work, usually referred to today as the Mistery or Rosary sonatas, comes back after years of absence.Gunar Letzbor makes his journey through the mysteries or events in the life of the Virgin Mary using two different violins and accompanied by no fewer than six musicians playing kaleidoscopic combinations of harpsichord, organ, lute, archlute, two bass viols and double bass a big continuo group which enhances and intensifies the changing moods of the cycle.

Biber’s sole extant opera, Arminio, was composed c1692 and first performed in Salzburg. Probably intended as a chamber work, its intimate settings are matched by music of subtle delights, with lovelorn laments, comic scenes and splashes of colour. Barbara Schlick leads a fine team of singers and the period-instrument Salzburger Hofmusik provides spirited support. A real Baroque treat.

–Graham Lock

Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber - Fidicinium Sacro-Profanum (1683)
Classical, Baroque | 1 CD | EAC | FLAC, CUE, LOG | Scans | 391 MB | Rapidshare
Recorded: 3-7 Sept. 2007, Volkshaus, Basel | Released: 2008 | Label: ZIG-ZAG 800701 | TT: 71:47
Les Plaisirs du Parnasse (David Plantier - violin & direction | Eva Bohri - violin | Peter Barczi, Patricia Gagnon - altos | Maya Amrein - cello | Andrea Marchiol - organ | Shiruko Noiri - archlute)

Biber's Fidicinum sacro-profanum … attempts a synthesis of sacred and profane, combining dances and contrapuntal rigor, if not artifice, under the umbrella of Biber's musical personality. These 12 sonatas … suggest Purcell's chunky vigor and exploratory fancy more distinctly than Corelli's elegantly restrained and serenely logical Fortspinnung. … Les Plaisirs du Parnasse … has tapped Biber's ingenious combinations of sounds, as rich and diverse in its own way as Vivaldi's. But rhythms assume an equal - and at times, even greater - significance. The detailed recorded sound possesses a winning depth and richness. Enthusiastically recommended to the ever-growing number of Biber's admirers as well as to more general listeners. (Robert Maxham, Fanfare, Jan/Feb 2009)