Biber's 1681 sonatas from Rachel Podger and Bojan Čičić

Today’s Recordings of the Week are a double-bill of Biber sonata albums from Rachel Podger and Bojan Čičić, the latter pleasingly sporting the composer’s namesake animal on the album cover. Neither Podger nor Čičić really needs much introduction; the former is known as the lynchpin of Brecon Baroque, and as a soloist in her own right. She appears with them again here, dominating the limelight thanks to Biber’s formidable solo writing. 

His 1681 sonatas are crammed with invention - not just ubiquitous virtuosic finger fireworks, starting from halfway through the first track, but also the scordatura technique (which Biber had put through its paces in his Rosary Sonatas a decade previously). Retuning the instrument on the fly is a feat in itself - one Biber asks of the violinist midway through the sixth sonata, with the top string tuned down a tone, creating a darker sonority that complements the C minor tonality. Other special moments include the climactic variations of the first sonata in A major, with light-fingered filigree and agile bariolage [rapid string-crossing] on display, and rounded off with an unorthodox Finale that sits firmly on the subdominant chord for virtually its entire duration - a harmonically static stage for Podger to strut - as well as a beautiful Adagio in the second sonata in D minor where the violin seems to duet with itself. 

The booklet accompanying Čičić’s recording with his Illyria Consort observes that whereas the Rosary Sonatas are each prefaced by a religious icon depicting the sacred mystery in question, this set is preceded by an image of Biber himself. Quite. The notes allude to the musical complexity serving a higher, almost meditative goal, but the glorification of the individual musician’s skill doesn’t need a deeper spiritual aspect to be compelling. Both violinists lose themselves in Biber’s imaginative writing, but although these solo works were identified by Charles Burney as the most challenging music around, neither of them ever struggles. It’s the aural equivalent of top-tier gymnastics or ballet. 

The approaches differ markedly in places - the opening and closing movements of the A major sonata have a more grounded feel to them in Čičić’s account thanks to his use of the chamber organ as the main continuo instrument, graced by subtle arpeggios from the harp. Podger’s harpsichord, archlute and theorbo, by comparison, create something altogether airier. Indeed the presence of the harp on Čičić’s recording is one of its most appealing features - I find its gentler attack provides a more relaxing underlay for the violin than the harpsichord’s bristling spread chords. Ornamentation-wise Podger perhaps favours trills, where Čičić inclines towards portamento - compare their differing approaches to the final movement of the second sonata in D minor, where Podger’s performance has a neurotic energy that contrasts with Čičić’s sense of relative poise. Not to take away from the soloists themselves, but I wonder whether the continuo is what really moulds this divergence in mood - taken as a whole, Čičić’s performance is maybe closer to the church or chapel, Podger’s more in the spirit of private devotion.

More prosaically, Čičić presents all eight sonatas (plus two bonus works), so he’s your man for the extended director’s cut experience. But Podger has a trick up her sleeve; the utterly joyous Sonata representativa. Here Biber lifts an idea from Jesuit polymath Athanasius Kircher’s monumental Musurgia Universalis - a mindbogglingly rich treatise that there isn’t time to go into here, but which incidentally features an early example of a device for composing music automatically by pressing buttons, a concern that’s on many people’s minds today as generative ‘AI’ continues to make inroads on the creative industries. In Book 1 Kircher notates some birdsong, which Biber borrows as the basis for a series of vivid miniatures, adding in a frog and a cat for fun. He pushes the violin to its limits by - frankly - mucking about with it, over- and under-tightening the strings and playing with all sorts of extended techniques to achieve the Baroque equivalent of Old MacDonald’s farm. It makes the Four Seasons look timid and is unashamedly silly - if you listen to no other early music this year, I heartily recommend you give this a go.