Rebecca Harris, baroque violin
Richard Stone, archlute
Matthew Glandorf, organ
a string mysterious combines ancient and new musical meditations on transcendental subjects. Three of Henrich Biber’s Mystery Sonatas (The Annunciation, The Crucifixion, and The Resurrection, composed c. 1676) are contrasted by arresting new pieces for baroque violin by Mark Rimple and Riho Esko Maimets.
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Heinrich Biber (1644 – 1704)
From the Mystery Sonatas:
The Annunciation
The Crucifixion
The Resurrection
Mark Rimple (b. 1969)
Mystic Fragments
Riho Esko Maimets (b. 1988)
Two Pieces for Violin and Lute
Mark Rimple
Mystic Fragments
Early in my relationship with the Biber Mystery Sonatas, in 2014,the idea for what eventually become this recording was born – I was compelled by an impulse to seek new music, for the same combination of instruments, on similar subjects. I wrote to Mark and asked if he had composed anything in that vein, and his response was so compose this piece for Richard and I.
Mark recalls that the genesis of the work came from reading a lot of mysticism and comparative mythology. Sleep was also a powerful inspiration for this set of seven ‘fragments’- Mark describes the idea of a dream life ‘fraught with conundrums and great details… a truly bizarre and meaningless world of symbols that we spend our waking lives trying to apprehend and concretize’. In contrast to the Mystery sonatas on this program, Mark’s piece explores the mystery of this aspect of our inner world – the music ranges from ethereal to Technicolor, meditative to violent, lost to found.
Riho Esko Maimets
2 Pieces for Violin and Lute
Two Pieces for Violin and Lute was commissioned for this project, and is dedicated to Riho’s mother. I commissioned Riho for this project, having come to know the incandescent beauty of his work while he was a student in Philadelphia. The first movement is an arrangement of a choral setting by Riho of Psalm 131, composed in 2009, followed by a ‘whimsical and perhaps nostalgic’ siciliana.
Psalm 131 echoes Biber’s style of instrumental writing, with a figured bass part and choice of instrument left to the discretion of the performer, and violin writing reminiscent of the preludes of the Mystery Sonatas. Psalm 131 reads:
Lord, my heart is not haughty,
nor mine eyes lofty:
neither do I exercise myself
in great matters, or in things too high for me.
Surely I have behaved and quited myself,
as a child that is weaned of his mother:
my soul is even as a weaned child.
Let Israel hope in the Lord from henceforth
and for ever. Amen. (KJV)
The performance indication for the Siciliana reads ‘poco allegretto con poco rubato, light-hearted with a sense of poignancy’. As I learned the piece, I came to think of it as the chance for a last dance with someone lost long ago – bittersweetness, the memory of what once was. Its almost impossibly simple tenderness is brushed by occasional licks of shadow, lasting no more than an instant, and it ends with a gentle ‘dot, dot, dot’…
The place of this piece in the program is surrounded in serendipity – it unintentionally echoes the siciliana of the Crucifixion sonata by which it is preceded, and foreshadows the key of the Resurrection sonata.
Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber
from Mystery Sonatas
The Annunciation
The Crucifixion and Death of Jesus
The Resurrection
Composed circa 1676, Biber’s Mystery Sonatas are a set of fifteen sonatas for violin and basso continuo, plus a passacaglia for solo violin, each representing one of the Holy Mysteries. The sonatas are written for violin in scordatura, a technique whereby the strings of the violin are deliberately mis-tuned, making possible different harmonic tonal effects. A resonant instrument, the violin responds vividly to being mis-tuned – in some cases, the tuning makes the violin feel more open, more responsive, due to the existence of new harmonics. In others – notably those selected for the sorrowful mysteries – it feels dulled, tense, under pressure. While there is a noticeable difference in tonal quality to the listener, there is a change perceptible only to the violinist, in the way the instrument responds to the bow, in the entire psychology of playing. For our whole lives, we have placed this finger on that string, resulting in this pitch, and all of a sudden, that is no longer true. New things are possible – some disorienting, some difficult, others miraculous. I can’t help but imagine that this mirrors, in some small way, the experience of Mary in encountering the mysteries of her life as the mother of God.
There is no textural indication of musical symbolism in the Mystery Sonatas, and the listener should be encouraged to be guided by their imagination and inner world above all else. As an instrumentalist, I offer these comments simply as a glimpse into my experience of encountering these powerful works:
The Annunciation is the only sonata in the set written for the normal violin tuning of G, D, A, E. Comprised of a prelude and set of variations, the sonata meditates on the visitation of Mary by the angel Gabriel, who bears the news of the coming Christ child. The theme of being tethered, grounded, is what strikes me in this sonata – the violin fleets over an unshakeable pedal in the praeludium, and the variations are by their nature never far from home. In a situation so unprecedented, so earthshaking as the annunciation, the emphasis on clear-eyed groundedness is striking.
The Crucifixion and Death of Jesus
The Resurrection requires the middle two strings of the violin to be crossed in the peg box and behind the bridge, creating pairs of perfect octaves, and visual crosses, clearly symbolic. If one goes through the physical mechinations of playing a scale across the two middle strings, the result bears little resemblance to anything step-like – reality feels upturned, everything feels new, and we must find a new way to do what we have done in the past. The glorious centerpiece of the sonata is a setting of the Easter hymn Surreixit Christus hodie (Jesus Christ is Risen Today), and it ends in the peace of hope – if all of this has occurred, what is possible now?
The same question felt pertinent to me as my inspiration from these pieces began to stretch its limbs… what is possible now will be what happens as you listen, and I invite you most warmly to continue to be curious, to make art and to continue to seek it, to use it as a lens for your world.
Praised for its “nearly unbearable brilliance” (Peter Dobrin, Philadelphia Inquirer), the music of Riho Esko Maimets has been receiving an increasing number of performances around the world. Riho recently completed a Diploma in Composition at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and now resides in Tallinn, Estonia, quietly delving into his craft.
Recent collaborations have overseen the composition of new works for the Estonian National Opera Boys’ Choir, the Grammy Award-winning Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, and a work for solo harp commissioned by The Curtis Institute. Upcoming projects include commissions from the Estonian National Male Choir, the Kitchener-Waterloo
Mark Rimple is a composer whose works often incorporate early instruments and techniques. His music has been performed by Parnassus, ChoralArts Philadelphia, Piffaro, The League of Composers/ISCM (at Weill Hall), Mélomanie, Network for New Music, and The 21st Century Consort (at The Simthsonian); his debut solo composition CD, January: Songs and Chamber Music of Mark Rimple (Furious Artisans)includes works for archlute, countertenor, viola da gamba and harpsichord. His Partita 622 appears on Mélomanie’s CD Florescence, and his Four Canons for clarinet and English horn was recorded by Duo del Sol (Centaur). His current projects include a series of songs for cello and baritone for Jean Bernard Cerin and Eve Miller for their new online new music portal Resonance, and a recording of his duo Portrait of a Dying Empire by saxophonist Marshall Taylor and harpsichordist Joyce Lindorff. As a performer, Mark has garnered critical notice for his interpretation of early music from national newspapers and journals including the Philadelphia Inquirer, The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, Early Music America, Fanfare, and Early Music (UK). He is adept on stringed instruments and performs regularly on the gittern, citole, lute, archlute psaltery, tenor viol, bandora and cittern. With Drew Minter and Marcia Young, he is a founding member of Trefoil and a regular guest artist with the Newberry Consort and The Folger Consort. In 2017 he will appear with Severall Friends with Mary Springfels, Ryland Angel, and Drew Minter in concerts in Santa Fe, Albequerque, and Vassar College. He has also appeared with Piffaro, the Renaissance Band, The King’s Noyse, Ex Umbris (at the Clinton White House), New York’s Ensemble for Early Music (at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on Broadway sereneding Judi Dench, and in Limoges, France), Mélomanie, Pomerium, Network for New Music, Cygnus Ensemble and the GEMS production of The Play of Daniel at the Cloisters and Trinity Church, NYC. He is currently working on a CD of Italian music for gittern, lute and archlute, and has just completed a new CD of Renaissance vocal chamber music with his ensemble Musica Humana Vocal Consort. Dr. Rimple holds the rank of Professor in the Department of Music Theory, Composition and History at West Chester University of Pennsylvania.
Matthew Glandorf (organ) has an active career as a conductor, composer, church musician, and educator. He was raised in Germany, where he received early instruction at the organ at the Bremen Cathedral with Wolfgang Baumgratz. At age sixteen he entered the Curtis Institute of Music as a student of John Weaver and Ford Lallerstedt. He pursued graduate studies with McNeil Robinson at the Manhattan School of Music. In 2004 he was appointed as artistic director of the Choral Arts (Society of) Philadelphia, and in 2008 he became the artistic director of the Bach Festival of Philadelphia. He has served as director of music for many Philadelphia churches, including St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Old St. Joseph’s, Old Pine Street Presbyterian, and Lutheran Church of the Holy Communion.
As an organist he is noted for his improvisation and has played recitals throughout the United States and in England and Germany, including Rochester Cathedral, Ulm Munster, the Cathedral of Bremen, the Wanamaker Grand Court organ, and the new organ in Verizon Hall. He has made several recordings as an organist and an accompanist. Matthew has served on the faculties of Swarthmore College and Westminster Choir College and is a current faculty member at the Curtis Institute of Music.
Lutenist Richard Stone has performed as soloist and accompanist worldwide. The New York Times called his playing “beautiful” and “lustrously melancholy,” while the Washington Post described it as having “the energy of a rock solo and the craft of a classical cadenza.” Solo recordings include the complete Weiss lute concerti in their modern premiere and the Fasch lute concerto. He co-directs Tempesta di Mare, the Philadelphia Baroque Orchestra, which records exclusively for the British label Chandos. Other recording and broadcast credits include Deutsche Grammophon, Lyrichord, PGM, Musical Heritage, Polygram, Vienna Modern Masters, ATMA, Eklecta, Centaur, Bis, Chesky, NPR, Czech Radio 3-Vltava and the BBC. Stone is professor of baroque lutes at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University, and an adjunct lute instructor for the Curtis Institute. He studied lute with Patrick O’Brien and guitar with David Starobin at SUNY Purchase, and with Nigel North at London’s Guildhall School as a Fulbright Scholar.
Rebecca Harris - violinist 