This plunge into the steady stream of Biber releases comes from violinist Anton Steck, an alumnus of the Musica Antiqua Köln period-instrument group. Austria's Heinrich Ignaz von Biber was a brilliant, iconoclastic violinist and composer of the late seventeenth century, hardly known 25 years ago but now the recipient of attention from violinists and casual listeners alike. His Mystery Sonatas collectively depict the Passion story through the unique device of scordatura, or retuning of the violin, which forces the instrument ...
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This plunge into the steady stream of Biber releases comes from violinist Anton Steck, an alumnus of the Musica Antiqua Köln period-instrument group. Austria's Heinrich Ignaz von Biber was a brilliant, iconoclastic violinist and composer of the late seventeenth century, hardly known 25 years ago but now the recipient of attention from violinists and casual listeners alike. His Mystery Sonatas collectively depict the Passion story through the unique device of scordatura, or retuning of the violin, which forces the instrument into strange, unearthly textures and moods. The violin sonatas on this disc, from the year 1681, are less conceptual in nature, but anyone who has heard and liked the Mystery Sonatas or any other music of Biber will find familiar territory here. The music is fearsomely difficult to play, uses scordatura, and forges structural details out of the sounds of a stretched-to-the-breaking-point violin (and violinist) in an extremely compelling way. The Sonata in D of Georg Muffat is a...
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