Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber: Mystery Sonata “Resurrection”
(from the so-called Rosary Sonatas) in G major for violin and basso continuo (around 1678, certainly composed in Salzburg between 1670 and 1687)

Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber
baptised as Hennericus Pieber 12 August 1644 in Wartenberg, Bohemia
died 3 May in Salzburg

Date of origin:
around 1678, certainly during the reign of Salzburg Archbishop Max Gadolf von Kuenburg between 1668 and 1687

Recordings:
Numerous recordings by many important Baroque violinists

This sonata is part of a cycle of 15 sonatas based on the 15 mysteries of the traditional rosary prayer. A passacaglia concludes this cycle as the 16th sonata. Biber dedicated the sonata cycle to the Archbishop of Salzburg, Max Gandolf von Kuenburg (reign: 1668-1687). Here we focus on the 11th sonata in the cycle. This mystery sonata is preceded in the printed edition by a copperplate engraving with a traditional depiction of the Resurrection.

Today, this Baroque depiction of the Resurrection is no longer sufficient if one wishes to do theological justice to the religious explosive power of the Christian testimony to the reality of Jesus' Resurrection. This also has consequences for the musical interpretation of this Resurrection Sonata.
However the first disciples may have psychologically processed the shock of Jesus' murder by crucifixion, they all testify that a new reality had been revealed to them (Paul calls it ophté in 1 Cor 15, Greek for ‘it has been seen,’ often translated somewhat miraculously as ‘it appeared’). The witnesses to the resurrection discovered Jesus as a living presence, but raised into the dimension of God (in biblical language: ‘at the right hand of God’). The death of Jesus and the failure of his message of the Kingdom of God was not the end; the reality of God and life itself were greater than they had previously imagined.

Music can also serve to help us imagine reality as greater than we are accustomed to. Religion fundamentally thrives on the fact that we must imagine our ideas and images of transcendence (God, heaven, the Holy Spirit, life after death, etc.) as even greater and more dynamic than even the universe we know demands of us.

Unusually, Biber requires the violin strings to be retuned (called scordatura) for his Resurrection Sonata: instead of G D' A' E, now G G' D''; this means that the strings must be crossed behind the bridge and in the pegbox. The third string therefore sounds lower than the second. But the two octaves in fifths produce a magnificent resonance that symbolically points to the fullness of life and the reality of resurrection. The crossed strings also indicate that suffering and pain are also significant for the reality of resurrection. The sonata has three movements, each of which approaches the expanded view of reality known as ‘resurrection’ in a different way.

Listen here!
Recording with Christina Day Martinson and Boston Baroque (8'22)
or
Recording with Gunar Letzbor and Ars Antiqua Austria:
Movement 1: Sonata (3'35)
Movement 2: Surrexit Christus hodie (4'28)
Movement 3: Adagio (1'21)

Listening companion:

I. Sonata

Above the calm, deep G of the basso continuo, the violin awakens with a morning motif, the echo of which lingers a fourth lower. The violin calls out twice more into the dark G sound space before setting off improvisationally, as if shaking the sleep from its limbs after a long period of grave silence. Everything sounds like an awakening filled with wonder.

A short, rousing motif is repeated three times decisively over three octaves. With this, the violin seems to have found new strength. It strides rhythmically forward into the new Easter morning.

Now the constant bass sound also changes from G to D upwards. One believes one can now also hear the awakening of nature. Birdsong evokes inner emotions and leads us meditatively into an Easter song, In the second movement this mystery sonata invites us to participate inwardly. 

II. Surrexit Christus hodie

The continuo bass sings the melody of the old Easter song “Surrexit Christus hodie”, and the violin joins in meditatively. This marks the beginning of a set of variations at the heart of the piece, as is often the case in Biber's mystery sonatas.

After the first verse is sung to a close in a duet between the violin and bass, the bass maintains the Easter melody while the violin imperceptibly quickens its rhythm. It plays around the melody and fantasises its variations ever faster, as if it wants to hurry, like the women and disciples in the Easter story in the Bible, to be among the first at the empty tomb.

Curious to see what awaits us at the end, we are taken on a journey through life, singing along inwardly, which becomes denser and more intense in a further variation of the violin. On its new scordatura, the Easter song finally resounds in double octaves in the violin, with the bass and violin alternating hymnically.

III. Adagio

Then a contemplative pause interrupts the hymn. With faltering double stops on the violin and a simple, beautiful melody, a short concluding adagio progresses.

What remains is a sense of anticipatory wonder and hopeful ignorance about what resurrection promises. In any case, it is something that we still have to imagine as greater and more beautiful.

Note for music lovers:

 

Website: Unknown Violin Concertos

E-Mail

 

tonibernet@gmx.ch