Rosary Sonatas!

Yesterday evening, I have played a concert for some live audience at Kirche Mariä Heimsuchung, Květnov in Czech Republic. I cannot thank enough for Alena Honigova for inviting me to play in this lovely church.

Since lockdown, this was the first concert I have actually performed in front of the live audience. It was very special…

The live streaming of the concert is still available for few more days, if you have missed, so here it is!

Programme includes:

Heinrich Ignaz Bieber:Rosary Sonatas

1. Annunciation 

IV.The Presentation of the Infant Jesus in the Temple

X. The Crucifixion

XV. The Beatification of the Virgin

A short harpsichord piece and Alena’s improvisation on the spot was also performed in between so that I could tune my violin to different scoratura tunings.

Biber’s Rosary Sonata has 16 pieces, and 14 of them are all written for “scordatura” violin. This means, 4 strings of the violin are differently tuned for each of these 14 sonatas. The standard violin tuning is G-D-A-E (from low to high, and this was used in the first sonata), but 4th sonata is A-D-A-D, 10th sonata is G-D-A-D, 15th sonata is G-C-G-D.

Here is a short recording of the rehearsal on the day before the concert at the Church. This was the opening piece of the concert.

Hopefully you’ll enjoy some of this recordings. I definitely did enjoy learning and performing these sonatas!