Just Biber

Following Europe’s bloody Thirty Years War (1618-48), people looked to science to restore the balance of a world so recently turned upside down. God was appointed chief scientist, the shaping force behind universal harmony and nature’s rational order. Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber sought to reflect the divinely ordained relationship between humankind and the rest of creation in music that combined dazzling virtuosity and striking tonal contrasts. Rachel Podger and five companions from Brecon Baroque reveal the depths of Biber’s Violin Sonatas of 1681, not least by bringing a profound spiritual stillness to each work. Listen, for instance, to the “Variatio” from the Sonata No. 2 in D Minor (Track 12), where Podger’s violin exudes calm as it soars and swoops, or to the enchanting interplay of bowed and plucked instruments in the “Passacaglia” from Sonata No. 6 in C minor (Track 26). Even the Sonata representativa (Tracks 16-24), with its playful imitations of animals, gains a meditative quality in the hands of Brecon Baroque’s inspired musicians.