Biber's Rosary Sonatas - Essay Example

Biber's Rosary Sonatas Heinrich Biber was born in 1644 in a small town called Wartenberg that is around fifty miles to the north of Prague and made his name as a virtuoso violinist. He went on to become a composer in the court as well as Kapellmeister in Salzburg. The Rosary or the Mystery Sonatas create a relationship between Biber’s Jesuit upbringings and the faith that he confesses to have in stringed instruments. He was an outstanding violinist of the seventeenth century and a first rank composer even though no much is actually known about him (Silvela 2001). Heinrich Biber’s most famous works that are known today were those that were not widely known in the seventeenth century which were his compositions of the fifteen mysteries of the rosary which exist in a single manuscript that is now in Munich. The fifteen sets of pieces are each in a different scordatura or a returning of the violin and the divisions between the sets are clearly marked booth by the scordatura indications and by the engravings that each set (Brewer 2011). Heinrich Biber was known in his time as a virtuoso on the violin and his writing that is meant for the instrument pushes the performer to greater levels of technical skills by employing the use of a number of stops that are designed to develop independent polyphonic lines as the main feature of his style. In addition, he had mastered scordatura which was the tuning of the instrument in such a manner that was not the regular tuning. His Mystery sonatas are good evidence of his use of scordatura in the entire musical repertoire. In the Sonata number eleven, scordatura is employed to make the chosen key that is G major more brilliant and to make the string crossings that are normally difficult to execute, easier to play (Roden, Wright and Simms, 2010). Biber was considered to be the finest practitioner that existed of the art of the scordatura and the only person that could be able to match his skills was J Walther (Sadie 1998). The Rosary Sonatas for solo violin and continuo that are created by Biber are the most famous violin music today next to Corelli’s that were created in the seventeenth century. The curious programmatic design, the amazing virtuoso techniques and the unique varieties of scordatura are basically the sources of the fame that is accorded to them. The writing for the violin that he did was extraordinary and a fantastical creation. This Rosary Sonatas have no clear definition of genre but they can be perceived to be dance-suites not the same as those of Muffat, even though they are also programmatic (Swain 2013). Schmelzer and Walther use the term Sonata and fuse together the attributes of the dance-suite, ostinato variations and programmatic pieces in a manner that their publication are hard to distinguish. All the collections entail at least a few dances and virtuosic variation movements that can be matched to recognizable types, but the reveal an overall freedom that ends up in works that are too ambitious, too unpredictably inventive, and on too large a scale to be understood as tidy examples in any particular genre of instrumental music (Carter and Butt 2005). The evidence that is seen in Biber’s music shows that fused a technique that was brilliant and the command of double stopping that was characterized by an expressive intensity that had no peers in the seventeenth century (Stowell 1992). In his work, Biber had drawn his inspiration from the work of Italian masters that included Marini and Uccellini and he went on to be a powerful influence on Tartini’s less celebrated contemporary Pietro Locatelli (Stableford 2012). The creativity that is generally required to create products that are of a superior value is the originality that is derived from perspective. It should not be considered to be simple technical originality since this; even on its own has the capability to contribute to a good work of art. The audiences are usually attracted to the virtuosity of an original artistic technique although it is more valuable when it is used as a means to an end and not just an end in itself. When the original technique makes the presentation of new perspectives possible, they are then considered to be of the most value. The expression and development of an innovative perception in a work of art may be dependent on the creation of a new technique such as the contribution that Biber made to the violin technique. The technical originality that was possessed by Biber was at the service at the cognitive function that is associated with music and his use of the scordatura in his mystery sonatas hugely widened the expressive possibilities of the violin and contributed to the cognitive value that is connected to these compositions (Young 2001). Biber used the scordatura effectively at the end of the second movement which was a long chaconne that was composed on the Latin hymn “Christ has risen today” where the violin is used to create a representation of the hymn tune in double-stop octaves. The outcome is a sound that is impressive but it can be seen to be relatively basic in terms of the scordatura where the violinist is supposed to play the top two strings at the same time with one finger and can play in parallel octaves by simply moving the finger up and down on the strings. So that the effects could be amplified, Biber made the Basso continuo to play in octaves also and even though the scordatura was a means to an end, the main aim of the particular programmatic sonata was mainly to develop an encouragement and also give an instruction to the devout with musical meditations that were based on sacred mysteries. The outstanding scordatura Rosary Sonatas for the violin and continuo that were published had been composed as preludes for the special October services that had been devoted to the Rosary Mysteries at the Salzburg Cathedral. The occasional nature of the music was emphasized by the inclusion in the edition of the engraved depictions of the fifteen mysteries and also another that was of a guardian angel with a child. A collection of band music that had been intended for strings and trumpets also emerged in 1676 which he was able to follow with two further collections of string music that had been created for either one or two violins, two violas and a bass. Biber as a soloist did not exclusively stick to the scordatura and this is exhibited in the violin sonata that he published in Nuremberg in 1681 which encompassed two sets of virtuoso variations that ascended to the sixth and seventh positions, but only two of which use this technique. This could be considered as a means of weighing the popularity of his richly polyphonic music that, eight years after he had passed on, there was a collection of scordatura that had not been published that was issued. The compositions that use scordatura in the manuscript that was created by Biber are notated in the manner of an instrument that is transposed whereby the violinist is directed where on the string he is supposed to place the finger although the resulting pitch varies from the notated pitch. The required scordatura tuning is demonstrated at the beginning of each of the compositions together with a signature that entails a curious mix of both flat and sharp signs which comes from the fact that each of the accidental only applies to the note in the specific octave in which it is written and not the octave that is above or below it unless stated otherwise. Most of the tunings of the scordatura need the violinist to raise or lower the strings by a tone or a second even though there are some tunings that go to the extreme and need that one or more of the strings of the violin are raised or lowered by as much as a fourth or fifth. The most unusual scordatura that is in the set is the mystery sonata number ten which requires that the violinists interchanges the middle two strings, crossing them before the bridge of the violin as well as at the nut that will result in a cross shape that is symbolic that will be seen at both ends of the violin. The main aim of the scordatura that are in the mystery sonatas has not always been understood and the uniqueness of the tuning of the scordatura in the resurrection sonata made the editors of the 1905 edition of the sonatas to completely misinterpret it (Gill 1984). This lead to an edition of the sonatas that was misconceived and laden with mistakes and there was an attempt at making a correction in 1959 but the mistakes were too many and were not altered. The scordatura tunings that he uses in the sorrowful mysteries tone down the violin’s bright sound and consequently creates minor dissonances and a compression in the range from the lowest to the highest string. Therefore, through the restriction of the range, the violin is able to give out vibrations that are conflicting which will contribute to the expression of tension that is seen in the suffering and despair from the sweating of blood all the way to the cross. The events that take place from the resurrection to the assumption of the virgin and also the coronation of the virgin are included in the glorious mysteries which is used to open the last cycle of the sonatas with an open and loud tuning that is remarkable. The Emperor Leopold I who had developed an admiration for the music that Biber created and also his style of playing the violin conferred on him the nobility title in 1690. Afterwards, Biber it is apparent that Biber retired to the country where he passed his time in his sunset years making compositions that were sacred and dramatic music for Salzburg (Chafe 1987). Reference list Brewer, Charles E. The instrumental music of Schmeltzer, Biber, Muffat and their contemporaries. Farnham, Surrey, England: Ashgate Pub., 2011. Carter, Tim and Butt, John. The Cambridge history of seventeenth-century music. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Chafe, Eric Thomas. The church music of Heinrich Biber. Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Research Press, 1987. Gill, Dominic. The Book of the violin. New York: Rizzoli, 1984. Roden, Timothy James, Wright, Craig and Simms, Bryan. Anthology for music in Western civilization. Belmont, CA: Thomson/Schirmer, 2010. Sadie, Julie Anne. Companion to baroque music. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. Silvela, Zdenko. A new history of violin playing. USA: Universal Publishers, 2001. Stableford, Brian M. The legacy of Erich Zann. [Rockville, Md.]: Borgo Press/Wildside Press, 2012. Stowell, Robin. The Cambridge companion to the violin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Swain, Joseph Peter. Historical dictionary of baroque music. 2013. Young, James O. Art and knowledge. London: Routledge, 2001. Read More