The Complete
Mystery (Rosary) Sonatas Live
original score by Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber (1644 - 1704)
transcription for viola by Gabriel Forero

Bohemian composer Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber (1644-1704) was one of the most outstanding violin virtuosos of the Baroque era. As a composer he completed a rich catalog of music which included operas, cantatas, sacred music, music for chamber ensembles, and  instrumental solo works. Among his catalog a collection consisting of 15 sonatas for violin and continuo and a final Passagalia for violin solo stand out. This collection which does not include a cover page, is currently known as the Rosary Sonatas (Rosenkranz-Sonaten) or Mystery Sonatas (Mysterien-Sonaten) due to the presence of different engravings at the beginning of each work, which serves as a meditation on one important moment in the life of Christ and the Virgin Mary according to the scriptures of the Christian faith. Due to the possible lack of a front page, or the lack of a title on the dedication page, there is no known official title for these sonatas, which has also led to them being known as the Biblical Sonatas, Passion Sonatas (Passions-Sonaten), or Sonatas of the Copperplate Engravings (Kupferstichsonaten). The manuscript does not include any indication of the year of composition either, but it was most probably written during 1678, year of the creation of the Confraternity of the Rosary as well as the year when Biber was appointed as vice-chapel master at Salzburg. 

The time required to perform each of these Biber's sonatas is roughly equivalent to that of reciting an Our Father and ten Hail Mary prayers. Biber's music is thus offered to accompany the archbishop's private meditation or "contemplation" on one of the mysteries at a time. The basic arrangement of the individual sonata movements is always similar, following the seventeenth-century instrumental music standards. In the center are the variations framed by the improvisation movements. In the first sonata he demonstrates the movements model in full: Praludium - Variatio - Finale. Only Sonata IV, with its single Ciacona, dispenses with the introduction and conclusion frame. The separate final sections are also dispensable in other sonatas, but otherwise an introduction is obligatory, with the exception of Sonata VII. The free preludes that Biber uses as introductions have a character of their own. They have a strange combination of elements of both unscripted music-making in the service of tuning and warming up, far removed from all art, with the highly artificial patterns of virtuoso keyboard music or the measured opening movement of the ensemble music. As for the middle movements, the Variation follows the traditional principles. As for the ways of developing the variations the composer used two main systems: the shortening of the rhythmic figures or the principle of due le parti con un violino solo, when two independent voices become audible in the high/bass register changes. Biber also used as middle movements the standard dance forms such as Allemande, Sarabande and Gigue, which was a common practice in the compositional style of some religious music and to present diversity of national styles.

The scordatura tuning used in fourteen of the sixteen works of the collection seeks to achieve different resonances of the instrument by changing the tuning of the strings, and to allow for the performance of double stops and chords not feasible with standard tuning. This German practice was first documented in an engraving by Erasmus Kindermann from 1653 and was also popular in Vienna and Kremsier, the places of Biber's earlier activity. However, Biber used the possibilities of scordatura much more radically than his contemporaries to get the timbral effects he wanted as they became almost as important as tonalities. Not only did he use the scordatura so that chords that are not possible in normal tuning could be played, but also for special effects such as note doubling, octave coupling and achieving brighter or softer "tonal colors" that can favor certain tonalities when set up accordingly. For the sonatas in which he seeks a brighter tone, the composer uses scordatura in which he raises the pitch of the strings, sometimes going up to a fifth above the normal string's capacity. This increases the string tension and for the same reason achieves brighter colors. On the contrary, when he is looking for more somber sonorities, he lowers the tuning of some strings to achieve this effect.