Introducing our Aug. 14 @Home performance by cellist Loretta O’Sullivan, Aston Magna Artistic Director Daniel Stepner writes:
Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber (1644-1704) was born in Bohemia and spent most of his professional life as a violinist and composer in Salzburg, a century before Mozart’s birth there. He raised the level of violin playing with his many challenging sonatas for violin and continuo, some of which experimented with non-standard tunings of the violin and also with multiple stops (two or more notes played simultaneously on adjacent strings). He composed varied instrumental and sacred music, but is best known for his fifteen Mystery Sonatas, inspired by the Rosary.
The last of these is his only surviving work for solo violin — an extended Passacaglia, which spins variations over a simple 4-note descending bass pattern which is heard throughout. Loretta O’Sullivan plays it here in her transcription for solo cello.