Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber 25-29 March

[doversoul1]

Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber (1644-1704)

Donald Macleod explores the music, and what little is known of the life, of Baroque master Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber.
[…]

Monday’s playlist
Missa Alleluia (Kyrie)
Soloists of St Florianer Sängerknaben
Markus Forster, Alois Mühlbacher, alto
Markus Miesenberger, Bernd Lambauer, tenor
Gerhard Kenda, Ulfried Staber, bass
Ars Antiqua Austria

Gunar Letzbor, conductor
Sonata ‘La pastorella’
Reinhard Goebel, violin
Phoebe Carrai, cello
Thierry Maeder, organ

Battalia a 10 (Sonata di marche)
Le Concert des Nations
Jordi Savall, conductor

Sonata violino solo representativa
Patricia Kopatchinskaja, baroque violin
Anthony Romaniuk, harpsichord

Partita VI in D (Harmonia Artificioso-Ariosa)
The Purcell Quartet

Produced by Chris Barstow for BBC Wales

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0003rq5

It maybe a repeat but never mind.

[Bryn]

About time, too, and not, apparently, a repeat.

[vinteuil]

About time, too, and not, apparently, a repeat.

... yes, this will be a must-listen week.

(Tho' sometimes it's nice having a week off. There have been some weeks (Piazzolla, Wiseman... ) when it's been liberating just to be able to enjoy some mid-day flânerie, benefiting from the clement season to stroll along the river admiring the blossoms and bird-life... )

.

[Bryn]

... yes, this will be a must-listen week.

(Tho' sometimes it's nice having a week off. There have been some weeks (Piazzolla, Wiseman... ) when it's been liberating just to be able to enjoy some mid-day flânerie, benefiting from the clement season to stroll along the river admiring the blossoms and bird-life... )

.

Oh, I rather like Piazzolla's music, just so long as it's accompanying 12 Monkeys.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

:... yes, this will be a must-listen week.

(Tho' sometimes it's nice having a week off. There have been some weeks (Piazzolla, Wiseman... ) when it's been liberating just to be able to enjoy some mid-day flânerie, benefiting from the clement season to stroll along the river admiring the blossoms and bird-life... )

- with the lack of anything worth listening to before noon, the extra hour allows much more to be done in the garden. (And I couldn't help thinking during the Berlioz weeks how annoying the "bits & bobs" format was - compare with the week from 1979 that gave complete works, including, IIRC, an extended programme to accommodate the Requiem. I have a sinking feeling that even This Week's Composer is losing its ability to get me listening to R3.

Still - the Biber should be a treat.

[Serial_Apologist]

The first work by Biber I heard was on Radio 3, back in the 1960s - the Battalia a 10, due to be broadcast on Monday - and the announcer saying that parts of it anticipated the work of Charles Ives, two centuries before Ives's birth. The passages in question portray drunken soldiers taking time out from war and having a bit of a sing-song, I believe, but as far as I know - and someone might correct me - Ives himself never intended to portray inebriation in any of his own music.

This is welcome: we don't often get to hear German Baroque music from the immediate pre-JS Bach period contemporary with Corelli on peak R3 listening time, Buxtehude honorably excepted.

[doversoul1]

Starting today.

[Serial_Apologist]

I much prefer much grittier versions of Battalia that I've heard over the years to the tame one we heard today.

[LeMartinPecheur]

The first work by Biber I heard was on Radio 3, back in the 1960s - the Battalia a 10, due to be broadcast on Monday - and the announcer saying that parts of it anticipated the work of Charles Ives, two centuries before Ives's birth. The passages in question portray drunken soldiers taking time out from war and having a bit of a sing-song, I believe, but as far as I know - and someone might correct me - Ives himself never intended to portray inebriation in any of his own music.

Wasn't the man who is so hideously out of time at the end of the Country Band March duly expelled for intemperance??

[oddoneout]

I much prefer much grittier versions of Battalia that I've heard over the years to the tame one we heard today.

But for those not fortunate enough to have heard it several times before I think this would have provided a fair amount of crunch?

[Quarky]

.....Nothing tame about Sonata Representativa.....very free in spirit......

[doversoul1]

I much prefer much grittier versions of Battalia that I've heard over the years to the tame one we heard today.

Yes, it was a bit polite but if it was from this CD,

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/7921667--biber-battalia-a-10-requiem-a-15

it was released back in 2003. Maybe things have roughed up a lot since? Still, as oddoneout says, I think this was more than good enough to impress the listeners who are coming to the work for the first time.

[MickyD]

This is my favourite version, from Goebel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vj_VXiFsr54

[BBMmk2]

Must hear this week’s programmes, as what I’ve heard from this composer,I rather like!

[ardcarp]

What a great week it's been. Perhaps the most astonishing programme was of the Violin Sonatas (not the Rosary ones) where Biber's sometimes improvisatory virtuosity was to the fore. He embraced the Venetian polychoral style in today's programme. The Missa Salisburgensis was not his only work in this genre, Missa Sancti Henrici is a lesser known but possibly more mature work...one of the 'choirs' consisting of 8 trumpets, the lowest being at 16' pitch. Its UK premiere was given in Sherborne Abbey some years ago; and the big trumpet was specially made for the occasion under the supervision of Crispian Steele-Perkins.