Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber

Dramatic gestures are rarely absent from Heinrich Biber’s music. He harnessed his gifts as one of the 17th century’s finest virtuoso violinists, composing eloquent sonatas for violin and works for other solo instruments—with trumpet prominent among them—and creating colossal choral works fit for grand sacred services. While little is known of his early life, Biber was born in Bohemia in 1644 and probably learned violin as a child. It appears that his gamekeeper father’s aristocratic employer introduced the young musician to the bishop of Olmütz. In 1668 he joined the clergyman’s illustrious court band at Kroměříž (today located in the Czech Republic). He jumped ship two years later to land in the service of Max Gandolph von Kuenburg, Salzburg’s powerful prince-archbishop, and soon rewarded him with The Mystery Sonatas, 16 works for solo violin and continuo inspired by the mysteries of the Roman Catholic rosary prayers. Biber’s monumental Missa Salisburgensis for 53 voices and instruments, first performed in Salzburg Cathedral in 1682, the motet Plaudite tympana, and the Missa Bruxellensis (1696) belong to a series of polychoral works designed to glorify God and magnify Salzburg’s ecclesiastical ruler.