John Holloway, violin; Davitt Moroney, harpsichord and organ; Tragicomedia
Virgin Classics VCD 7 90838-2 (2 CDs)
Biber’s Mystery Sonatas, also known as the Rosary Sonatas, belong to that small category of music that seems to have arrived from nowhere. Nothing else written for the violin in the seventeenth century has quite the same combination of religious intensity, technical daring and sheer strangeness.
The collection follows fifteen events in the lives of Christ and the Virgin Mary, divided into the Joyful, Sorrowful and Glorious Mysteries. Biber does not tell these stories in the direct manner of an opera or an oratorio. Instead, he creates a succession of devotional moods. Dance movements, variations, laments and flourishes become meditations on the Annunciation, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection and the Coronation of the Virgin.
Central to the music is Biber’s use of scordatura. The violin is retuned for nearly every sonata, altering the instrument’s resonance and making possible chords that would otherwise be difficult or impossible. The result is not merely a technical novelty. Each tuning seems to give the violin a different personality. It can sound bright and open in one sonata, constricted and uneasy in another, and almost disembodied in the next.
John Holloway understands that this is not music requiring continuous virtuoso display. His tone is lean, sinewy and sometimes deliberately rough-edged. He does not try to make the Baroque violin sound like a modern instrument or smooth away the discomfort built into Biber’s writing. In the Sorrowful Mysteries especially, the slight hardness of his playing gives the music an austerity that seems entirely appropriate.
Just as important is the changing continuo supplied by Davitt Moroney and the members of Tragicomedia. Harpsichord, organ, lute, chitarrone, harp, regal, viola da gamba and lirone are used in different combinations, giving each sonata its own acoustic setting. The accompaniments never become decorative clutter. They deepen the atmosphere while leaving Holloway’s violin at the center of the drama.
Individual sonatas can certainly be enjoyed separately, but this performance is most powerful when heard as a complete journey. Holloway maintains a sense of direction across the two discs, moving from the comparative innocence of the Joyful Mysteries through the darkness of the Crucifixion and into the radiance of the final group.
After all that color, Biber ends with an unaccompanied Passacaglia representing the Guardian Angel. Its repeated descending bass pattern supports an increasingly elaborate solo line. Holloway plays it without exaggeration, allowing its loneliness and quiet grandeur to emerge naturally. The effect after the preceding sonatas is overwhelming.
There are more polished and more spectacular recordings of this music, but few communicate its spiritual architecture as convincingly. Holloway and Tragicomedia treat the sonatas not as sixteen Baroque showpieces but as a single sustained act of contemplation.
A profound recording of one of the strangest and greatest monuments of Baroque violin music. Highly recommended.
