The name is Biber: Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber

[Mandryka]

I'm starting to explore Evan Johnson's extrovert and rather fun recording of the Rosary sonatas, this comment about violin tuning caught my attention. We've discussed "well temperament" before, I'm not sure what it is really, some form of Kimberger system?

Temperaments & Tunings

For this recording, we chose two temperaments or tuning systems, both of which Biber might have used in Salz-burg. One is a well temperament, which permits playing in any key, but in which each key has a different color. Usually, the keys with fewer accidentals sound mellower, and those with more accidentals sound brighter. The other is a mean-tone termperament, in which the usable keys all have the same color, but some keys sound too out of tune to use.

In the first five "joyful" sonatas, well temperament enhances the excited or happy feelings because of the active sound of the frequent A and E major triads. The major thirds are quite wide and produce rapid beat frequencies. In Sonata III (Birth of Christ), the very stri-dent F sharp major dominant chord con-tributes to the strange feeling of pain. In contrast, Sonatas XI, XII, and XV (of the "glorious" group) sound more glowing and relaxed. The major third in the C ma-jor triad is beatless, and in the G major tri-ad almost so. These beatless thirds evoke the sound of trumpets in Sonata XII.

Our well temperament could have worked nicely for the "sorrowful" sona-tas also, but beats are more intrusive in an organ's denser sound than on a harpsi-chord, and a "fifth-comma" mean-tone temperament with close to pure major thirds seemed a good alternative. In this temperament, all the minor triads, which still beat a lot, contrast with all the major triads, which beat much less. This mean-tone temperament also provided an ex-pressive "wolf tone" (out of tune) effect for the B major chord in Sonata IX.

And this note showing their seriousness about instruments, which in my experience can pay dividends

Instruments Played In This Recording

We matched the tone qualities of each of the five violins to the color and charac-ter of each sonata. Before playing each  sonata, William L. Monical, of New York, adjusted the soundposts, so that each scordatura tuning would reinforce the character of its sonata. I am indebted to him for his advice and expertise in provid-ing these sound adjustments, as well as for loaning three of the violins used in this recording. I am also very grateful to Wil-liams College for the use of the Eberle violin.


Strings for the violins (pure gut, ex-cept for low G, Ab, and A, which are sil-ver-covered gut) were made by Damian Dlugolecki, of New York, whose extra help I very much appreciate. The violin bow, made by Stephen Marvin, of Toron-to, in 1982, is a copy of an early eighteenth century French bow.

The cello is an anonymous English instrument, ca. 1840, converted to ba-roque condition. The harpsichord is a Zuckerman copy of an early eighteenth century French double manual instrument, built by Louis Patterson, of Elm-hurst, Illinois, in 1980. The positive or-gan, built in 1985 by Gerrit C. Klop, of Garderen, Holland, was provided by Edward Brewer, of Leonia, New Jersey.

[Mandryka]

Interesting comment here about the Rosaries - I'll just cut and paste because I guess google translate works on it

https://www.classicalacarte.net/Production/Production_09_16/AE10256_wunderkammern.htm

. . . on a, par exemple, une citation de la Sonate X, La Crucifixion, dans la Sonate III, La Nativité, ce qui s'accorde avec les représentations iconographiques de cet épisode dont on aurait tort d'oublier qu'il n'est pas uniment joyeux . . .

. . . notons que nous assistons ici à un mélange qui peut sembler singulier à notre modernité entre sujet sacré et formes séculières, comme en atteste la présence des danses qui étaient normalement interdites à l'église et confèrent à chaque sonate un caractère de suite –, réalité et idéalité tendent à se brouiller et même à disparaître, comme dans ces paysages rêvés par les miniaturistes du XVIIe siècle que leur sujet entraîne à dépasser le cadre matériel contraint, à l'instar de celui d'une sonate, dans lequel ils travaillent pour laisser se déployer leur imagination vers l'immensité.

Anyone familiar with any of the pictures alluded to?

[DaveF]

Anyone familiar with any of the pictures alluded to?

I'm thinking of things like Van der Weyden's Adoration of the Magi, with the teeny weeny crucifix on the wall of the stable.  There's also the one referred to in Wolf's song Auf ein altes Bild, which if I had more time (just getting ready for work, but obviously attending to the important stuff first) I would look up.

[Mandryka]

In grüner Landschaft Sommerflor,
Bei kühlem Wasser, Schilf und Rohr,
Schau, wie das Knäblein sündelos
Frei spielet auf der Jungfrau Schoss!
Und dort im Walde wonnesam,
Ach, grünet schon des Kreuzes Stamm!

[Jo498]

There seems no obvious picture Mörike is referring to, so some comments I found assume he "mixed" different pictures:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuppach_Madonna

https://hans-meierhofer.ch/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Altes-Bild-1.pdf
https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/virgin-and-child-with-the-monkey-albrecht-d%C3%BCrer/wAGYezDQDQmxVg?hl=de&ms=%7B%22x%22%3A0.5%2C%22y%22%3A0.5%2C%22z%22%3A8.497959423336747%2C%22size%22%3A%7B%22width%22%3A3.601171243540206%2C%22height%22%3A1.2374999999999998%7D%7D