Strung up for Biber "Resurrection"
Already looking forward to some Easter programming where we will play some of the Rosary sonatas by Heinrich Biber. I have always loved these sonatas, and have performed them individually in various programmes throughout my life. So, to be able to a good chunk of them in a single concert will be quite a nice challenge!
Now, these sonatas are a set of 15 (plus 1) sonatas that are reflections on the Catholic Rosary (or Mysteries) that depict the story of Jesus. What really sets these sonatas apart is the use of scordatura, a technique of "mistuning" the violin to get different chordal possibilities as well as changing the sound of the instrumental quite drastically!
It was a technique that was quite common in the early German Baroque era... but it died out, and very few people (apart from some Early Music specialists) will try their hand at these days. In fact, you will find it more commonly in folk and rock circles for violins and guitars!
Anyway, each sonata is in a completely different tuning... which makes the performance of more than a couple of them to be a bit of a logistical nightmare as you will need 3 to 5 good violins to feasibly make it work.... and then each violin will play and respond differently, so you will also need to be familiar enough with them to pick them up and play them at potential immediately!
The pictured violin shows off the most "bizarre" of the scordatura tunings... where the strings are crossed over to be able to change the order of high-low in addition to the regular scordatura. The bottom strings are an octave G apart, and the top two are an octave D apart... now, if you kept the regular stringing order (without the crossing at the tailpiece end...), you would have the middle strings in terrible tension.. one would be strained near snapping point (or beyond!), and the other would just be flopping around uselessly!
I have always wanted to play this particular sonata... but haven't ever had the guts to try the crossed strings... and I'm forcing myself to do it next year. It is a little strange... I don't mind the mistuning of the strings, that is familiar enough to me... but it appears that my reflexes as to which direction to move my bow when I hear a higher or lower sound is a little bit hardwired into my bow arm!
So, that means when I'm double-stopping on the middle two strings, and when I want to balance towards the higher or lower tone... I am still rebalancing in the wrong (the normal, instead of the reversed) direction! Sigh... I have a few months to get that under control!
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Thanks and thanks!
Hey great content, threw you an upvote, appreciate one back :)
Another composer I a now discovering thanks to you!
Biber is one of the greatest composers of the Early German Baroque! Lots of great stuff there... check out the Battalie for something a bit unusual!
Will do.
Here I thought you guys were getting all hip and playing some Justin Bieber! Good luck to you!
Haha.. nope, nerdy as always!
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STOPI'm really glad that you explained it as I asked youngest if he knew why you would cross the strings over and he wasn't sure either XD Then I asked him what he thought about your music and he said it looked like you spilled ink XD
He's only just started learning how to play violin and read sheet music so everything is pretty basic right now XD
Your setup sounds complicated x_x
I know you didn't particularly enjoy a lot of the business admin side of running the business, is the programming side at least an enjoyable aspect for you? :D
It is a pretty weird and unusual setup! In fact, quite unique! The old manuscripts... yeah, they are pretty damn messy... these sonatas, the ink from from the opposite side and seeped through, so that is why it is so hard to read. Although, the clean pages are also pretty messy to start off with!
I love programming the concerts... definitely consider that to be part of the artistic side of things. Creating a concert arc that will interest and hold both the audience and the performer is quite an interesting puzzle... and I will lose days in a listening and researching rabbit hole as I find things that I want to programme for years in advance! Much more so for our field, as we are often playing things that are quite rare or forgotten and not the rehashed regulars.
At least you won't run out of ideas for ages XD Do you outline stuff that you think would be a good idea so you've got something to start with in the unlikely event you get stuck?
Oh yes... I have enough ideas for several years worth of concerts! Often the problem is trying to contain them for a single program so that it doesn't explode the concert length!
I believe you can achieve whatever you want. But dk you play the violin?
Yep, it is my job!