The Rare Fruits Council; Manfredo Kraemer, director
Auvidis Astrée E 8572
Biber’s Harmonia artificioso-ariosa consists of seven partitas for two melody instruments and continuo. That description makes the work sound much more orderly than it is. Behind its conventional dances and variations lies a world of strange tunings, unexpected harmonies and instrumental colors that seem to change whenever the listener has become comfortable.
Scordatura—the retuning of the strings—is used in six of the seven partitas. As in the Mystery Sonatas, Biber employs it for more than virtuoso display. The altered tunings change the way the instruments resonate, making familiar intervals sound oddly displaced. Chords acquire an unfamiliar weight, open strings ring in surprising places, and the music seems to glow from within.
The Rare Fruits Council does not treat these effects as historical curiosities. The ensemble attacks the music with such energy that the altered tunings become physically present. Manfredo Kraemer and Pablo Valetti play with a rich, biting tone, and their exchanges can sound less like polite Baroque conversation than an argument between two brilliant improvisers.
The tempos are often extremely fast. Accents land with considerable force, and the players occasionally push a dance close to the point where it might come apart. Yet the risk is part of the attraction. Biber’s music is full of sudden changes and improbable turns, and a cautious performance can make it seem merely eccentric. The Rare Fruits Council allows it to remain genuinely unpredictable.
The slower movements receive equally distinctive treatment. Kraemer and Valetti linger over suspensions and draw out the unusual harmonies without losing the underlying pulse. The continuo group—violoncello, violone, viola da gamba, harp, theorbo, Baroque guitar, organ and harpsichord—provides an unusually varied foundation. The result can be dark and grainy in one movement, then luminous and sensuous in the next.
Partita VI, the only work in the collection using conventional violin tuning, contains an air followed by thirteen variations. It is one of Biber’s most dazzling demonstrations of controlled invention. The performers distinguish each variation clearly while preserving the larger arc, and the closely spaced canon near the end emerges with startling precision.
Partita VII substitutes two viole d’amore for the violins. Their sympathetic strings give the music a resonant, silvery halo, bringing the collection to a conclusion quite unlike anything that came before it. By this point Biber has made standard Baroque forms seem capable of containing almost any sonority he can imagine.
There are moments when the Rare Fruits Council’s aggressive articulation and precipitous speeds may strike some listeners as excessive. But restraint is not necessarily the highest virtue in music this quixotic. The occasional exaggerations belong to an interpretation that is alert to Biber’s humor, sensuality and appetite for surprise.
This is not a polished, decorous account of Harmonia artificioso-ariosa. It is vivid, volatile and sometimes nearly reckless. That is precisely why it remains so compelling.
A thrilling performance that makes Biber’s strange harmonies and altered tunings sound newly discovered. Highly recommended.
