Martin Pearlman Archive

H.I.F. BIBER: The Mystery Sonatas — Christina Day Martinson, Boston Baroque — Linn 

by Audiophile Audition | Jun 11, 2018 | Classical CD Reviews

H.I.F. BIBER: The Mystery Sonatas — Christina Day Martinson, violin; Boston Baroque, dir. Martin Pearlman — Linn CKD501, 120:21, (5/19/18) ***: Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber today is remembered as one of the great virtuosos of the middle baroque and an important innovator in Germanic violin composition. And among his surviving works, this collection, the Sonatas of the Mystery of the Rosary, receive a lot of attention due to their baroqueness. Each of the sonatas is based, it would seem, on a prayer from the Rosary. The printing of the collection was made with scenes depicting stories from the life of Christ. Some consider the pieces as musical meditations. Beyond the suggestion of these sonatas as program music, these sonatas are more curious because of Biber’s use of string mistuning, often called scordatura, from the Italian. Only the first and last pieces use a normally-tuned violin; the others vary the tuning of one or more strings which promote different chordal possibilities, but moreover, change the sonic quality of the instrument. As depicted on this cover, the most interesting sonata for scordatura is the tenth sonata, the Crucifixion. The performer must cross the middle two strings, forming a “cross” between the […]