The stage at 92NY was set with four violins, two violas da gamba, two cellos, harp, harpsichord and chamber organ, nearly twice as many instruments as there were musicians for the last of a weekend run by the Los Angeles ensemble Wild Up and with, notably, violinist Andrew McIntosh performing in all of them. Biber’s virtuosic Rosary Sonatas would be his final spotlight of the trip.
McIntosh told the audience before the concert began that his first love had been contemporary music but when he heard Biber’s sonatas he started studying Baroque violin. And in the 17th Century, Biber’s sonatas might have been rather experimental: a demanding set of short pieces charting the life of Christ with different tunings for each. McIntosh likened the tunings to a photographer’s filters: the effects might not be overtly discerned, but the subtle shifts in tonality suggest different moods, from blessing and light to persecution and execution.
The depth of emotion could seem a bit mannered to modern ears – Baroque is a language not often spoken, after all – but fleeting dissonances did begin to appear in the second sonata, which McIntosh gave no undue emphasis. (Biber may well have been more egalitarian about pitch than many of his contemporaries.) A climax was reached in the triumphant Fifth Sonata, bearing the title “The 12-year-old Jesus in the Temple”. It should be noted that the movement titles were added later. The extant engraved score identifies the movements by illustration. Even the name of the work itself was added later, as the score lacks a title page, and is sometimes given as “The Mystery Sonatas” or, rather less romantically, the “Copper-Plate Engraving Sonatas”.
Ian Pritchard made an initial announcement on organ but soon shifted to harpsichord, Malachi Bandy’s viol, providing only the smallest moments of support, celebratory and spritely in an elation that rose above thought and then, with Maxine Eilander’s harp, initiating what seemed a court procession and a lovely Sarabande to conclude the first section. Throughout the nearly three hours, the ensemble executed hairpin shifts in tempo as easy as natural progressions, like clouds passing before the sun.
The Ninth Sonata, “Jesus Carries the Cross”, provided the next peak, beginning with a foreboding organ drone. McIntosh gave the violin lines a wonderful spaciousness, weary and lost. The Ninth also initiated a succession of lowered tunings, where the preceding had all been upward. It was the most wonderfully expressive piece up to that point, dissolving into a quick blur accentuated by violin and harpsichord before Christ’s ascension in the final set.
We reconvened after the second interval for “The Resurrection”, McIntosh intensely sawing at the strings and running nearly the length of the violin’s range over organ intervallics in a stunning display of instrumental dexterity. It was right where the climax should be, at the two-thirds mark, although oddly broken by the break. Sonatas Nine, Ten and Eleven felt as if they should have been played together, attacca even (although the musicians understandably might not have agreed as they reached the final stretch of the marathon). Tuning turned upward again and ebullience returned with “The Assumption and Beatification of the Virgin”. It’s an expansive piece, yet remarkably concise.
The sonatas are often performed with a final, solo violin passacaglia (also composed by Biber), but Wild Up chose to conclude with the Fifteenth Sonata. As with the addition of the Chorale Prelude to The Art of Fugue (composed by Biber’s contemporary, Bach), the perfunctory resolution is altogether unnecessary. The Wild Up musicians wisely let the mysteries stand.
