Passacaglia manuscript with the Guardian Angel engraving Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Performed by Anne Loeser (baroque violin)
The set of 15 Mystery Sonatas as they were discovered in Munich a hundred and thirty years ago concludes with a 16th sonata, not part of The Mysteries of the Rosary but an obvious adjunct to them. This is the Passacaglia in G minor, known as The Guardian Angel. Why The Guardian Angel? In the autograph scores, a space was left in the top left-hand corner of each sonata, and a small copper plate engraving affixed. Each engraving is of a scene from The Mysteries of the Rosary, and identifies its sonata with that mystery. Number 16, the Passacaglia, has an illustration of a Guardian Angel holding a child’s hand, which is not a part of the Rosary.
Rather adventurously Biber scored his Passacaglia for violin alone. Forty years before J.S. Bach’s sonatas and partitas, the idea of solo violin without basso continuo was almost unheard of. And after fourteen different travails with scordatura throughout the entire cycle, we have finally returned to the correctly tuned violin in fifths, which was last heard two hours of music ago in the very first Joyful Mystery of the Rosary, The Annunciation.
A passacaglia is a dance where a short phrase is repeated in varied ways over and over. Biber’s Passacaglia’s opening four-note descending phrase is ‘The Guardian Angel’ and it never leaves us. Biber adds all sorts of things to it, but it is always, literally, there. Sixty-five times. Even when the music is black with hemi-demi-semiquavers, The Guardian Angel will guide us through. You can depend on it.
Programme note by Gregory Hill.
Producer/engineer: David McCaw
