Rosary Sonatas
| Rosary Sonatas | |
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| Violin sonatas by H. I. F. Biber | |
Violin with strings prepared for Sonata No. 11
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| Composed | around 1676 |
| Published | 1905 |
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The Rosary Sonatas (also known as the Mystery Sonatas or Copper-Engraving Sonatas) by Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber are a collection of 15 short sonatas for violin and continuo, with a final passacaglia for solo violin. Each has a title related to the Christian Rosary devotion practice and possibly to the Feast of the Guardian Angels.
It is presumed that the Mystery Sonatas were completed around 1676, but they were unknown until their publication in 1905. The music of Biber was never entirely forgotten due to the high technical skill required to play many of his works; this is especially true of his works for violin. Once rediscovered, the Mystery Sonatas became Biber's most widely known composition. The work is prized for its virtuosic vocal style, scordatura tunings and its programmatic structure.
Biber wrote a large body of instrumental music and is most famous for his violin sonatas, but he also wrote a large amount of sacred vocal music, of which many works were polychoral (the most impressive being his Missa Salisburgensis).
In his sonatas for violin, Biber integrated new technical skills with new compositional expression and was himself able to accomplish techniques that no other known violinist could at his time (Dann 2011). The Mystery Sonatas include very rapid passages, demanding double stops and an extended range, reaching positions on the violin that musicians had not yet been able to play (Hill 2005).
The original and only manuscript is stored in the Bavarian State Library in Munich. There is no title page, and the manuscript begins with a dedication to his employer, Archbishop Gandolph. Because of the missing title page, it is uncertain what Biber intended the formal title of the piece to be (Holman 2000) and which instruments he intended for the accompaniment (Manze 2004). Although scholars assume that the sonatas were probably written around the year 1676, there is evidence that they were not all written at the same time or in the same context. This means that Biber could have collected the sonatas from his previously composed works to form a collection and replaced inappropriate suites with new and descriptive compositions. However, they are assembled into a remarkably coherent large-scale form which is also relevant to the Mysteries of the Rosary.
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