Biber Mystery Sonatas (your recommendations) & period performance

June 15, 2011 at 05:17 AM ·

 There is a new one out: http://www.amazon.com/Mystery-Sonatas-Julia-Wedman/dp/B004GX91UM

June 15, 2011 at 12:02 PM ·

I love the Manze version.  I'm also drawn to this one by Patrick Bismuth, who really emphasizes the bass line throughout the entirety of the piece. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JS8tnac9ad0&feature=related

Both of the recordings you are comparing are very "baroque" in style though different.  I've been studying the baroque violin for 2 yrs and I have no idea how to explain what makes a performance baroque or not.  Essentially it comes down to the actual instrument itself - it teaches you how to play it.  The combination of short bow, gut strings, and no chin rest dictate what kind of sound you are going to make.  In addition to that baroque players do lots of research and use treatises and theory books that were in circulation during those periods.  These technique books indicate that the player must stay relaxed, the bow arm should be loose with the elbow dropped, and the violin rests loosely on the collar bone without squeezing the chin on it.

There are some common misconceptions of what it means to play baroque:

1 - baroque players don't use any vibrato - not true, we do use vibrato but treatises of the time indicate that vibrato is an ornament, to be used at specific times mainly during long sustained notes, not on short fast notes or cadences.  Furthermore baroque players are taught to make shapes and gestures with the bow, not the left hand.

2 - baroque players are not very good because they only play in first position and use open strings - again not true, there are many musical examples where baroque music is played in high positions such as in Bach or Locatelli.  Lower positions are favored because of the nature of gut strings, they don't ring very well in the upper positions.  Also, open gut strings ring gorgeously and we make use of them as much as possible when appropriate.

Hope this helps a little.

June 15, 2011 at 06:34 PM ·

thanks for the teaser laurie

marina, of course it helps, thank you.  i'm interested in gaining a better understanding of this.  i'm listening to the three versions now and they're so different. for instance, as you mentioned, patrick bismuth plays the descending voice in a very marked seperate manner at the beginning, employing a more stacatto-marcato stroke, whereas manze's is pianissimo very smooth detache'. sometimes, later on,  these low notes with manze's playing almost stick to the bottom end of the arpeggiation and melody of of the upper voice, forming a singular line (if i'm not phrasing this correctly, please correct me) whereas in bismuth, its independence is integral throughout. they're very different, in tempo, in bringing out the dynamics, in bow strokes even. bismuth's reading is  dramatic and  densely tied up together and very rythmical, whereas manze's can be exceedingly beautiful and tender and light and spatious, almost like liturgical singing. almost like two different pieces...so i'm curious, if these people are reading from the same text books, would they not arrive to a sort of closer technical proximity to each other? i am not at all upset that there is such a difference, just curious. is it the case that baroque music, at least of that age, just allowed that extent of difference in interpretation...whereas, with the advent of classicism, the composer had more and more detail down on the score thus necessarily limiting the possibility of having such differences..or the differences become more subtle?

June 15, 2011 at 06:36 PM ·

Here is my absolute fav

BIBER, H.I.F. von: Mystery (Rosary) Sonatas (Minasi, Bizzarrie Armoniche)

It's on the ARTS label

June 16, 2011 at 12:48 PM ·

"...so i'm curious, if these people are reading from the same text books, would they not arrive to a sort of closer technical proximity to each other?"

Why should they? This is what I love most about baroque music - The composer trusts the performer absolutely.  Many times in slow movements composers only jot down a couple of notes and leave all the ornaments and embellishing up to the performer entirely (this is most evident in Corelli Sonatas if you're interested in listening to Manze's version and comparing with the score).  As you can see in all the recordings of the Passacaglia each performer takes liberties and adds to the music.  That's allowed!  In baroque music you can add ornaments, changes rhythms, the possibilities are endless.  The only other style I can compare it to would be jazz.  As we move through the periods of Classisicm and Romanticism and the 20th century composers become more and more controlling of their music - Mahler went as far as to write paragraphs of directions in his scores.  In baroque music the only thing you will find is a dynamic marking here and there.  There are no accents, no crescendos marked, no articulation markings, not even slurs really.  It's completely up to the performer.  Fun no?