Gent / Cheatham / Cuiller / Gallon
Biber: Rosenkranz-Sonaten
Monday
5
May
2025
19:30
Mozart-Saal
Tickets for members from 1 April, for the general public from 8 April, 2025
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Performers
Sophie Gent, Violine
Josh Cheatham, Viola da gamba
Bertrand Cuiller, Cembalo
Pierre Gallon, Orgelpositiv
Programme
Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber
XVI Sonaten über die Mysterien des Rosenkranzes (Auswahl) (1674 ?)
Note
Medienpartner Ö1 Club
Subscription series
Originalklang
Presented by
Wiener Konzerthausgesellschaft
Violin Mysteries
»Of all the violin players of the last century, Biber seems to have been the best, and his solos are the most difficult and original of any music I have seen from the same period«, said the much-traveled music writer Charles Burney about the violinist and composer Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber, who was born in Bohemia. He could play up to the 7th position, used heavy double stops as well as the so-called scordatura, the retuning of the individual strings of the violin to increase the expressive spectrum. This earned him a glorious reputation, a title of nobility and gifts such as golden chains and pennies of grace. One of the most important works in his oeuvre, which also includes hugely scored compositions such as the »Missa Salisburgensis«, vocal and various instrumental compositions and operas, are the rosary sonatas written in Salzburg around 1678. These are 15 sonatas for solo violin and basso continuo, five for each of the various rosary mysteries, as well as a subsequent passacaglia for solo violin. These were not given their names by titles, but by engravings preceding the sonatas in the original manuscript. Sophie Gent, an Australian-born baroque violinist who trained in The Hague, presents a selection from this unique oeuvre. She is concertmaster of Raphaël Pichon's Ensemble Pygmalion and Philippe Pierlot's Ricercar Consort, among others, and works regularly with the Ensemble Arcangelo as well as Kristian Bezuidenhuit and Jean Rondeau. Like Biber, she plays a violin by Jacob Stainer.
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