Name: Biber: Music for the Head, Hands, and Heart
Start: 2025-03-02T15:00:00-08:00
End: 2025-03-02T17:00:00-08:00
Location: St. Augustine's in-the-woods

Biber: Music for the Head, Hands, and Heart

The Whidbey Island Music Festival presents great period instrument performances of baroque and classical chamber music in relaxed and intimate settings. Our mission is to provide our audience with concert experiences that educate, entertain and delight.

Whidbey Island Music Festival

Leave the world behind and journey into the world of Biber and his 17th-century Austrian contemporaries.

St. Augustine's in-the-woods

What makes art timeless? Is it its ability to engage the entire spectrum of our emotions, or its power to meet us where we are and change us for the better? Like the works of Shakespeare, the music of Heinrich Biber is both earthy and sublime, tuneful and transcendent. It aspires to the sacred yet is not afraid to dance in the pub, and is ablaze with virtuosity and innovation.Leave the world behind and journey with baroque violinist Tekla Cunningham, viola da gamba player Joanna Blendulf, and organist/harpsichordist Henry Lebedinsky into the world of Biber and his 17th century Austrian contemporaries, a musical feast for all the senses and a balm for the soul. Feel the resonance of two beautiful and rare violins – a Venetian violin from 1746 by Sanctus Seraphim, and a 1720s violin piccolo from Tyrol. About Biber: Music for the Head, Hands and Heart:Last summer, a visit to Salt Spring Island’s craft and farmer’s market sparked a fascinating connection to the music you’ll hear tomorrow afternoon. I discovered stunning malas and rosaries crafted by Markus Knox from crushed rose petals. The process is both time-honored and labor-intensive: fragrant dried rose petals are cooked and pounded into a smooth paste with water, then hand-formed into beads and dried. The resulting beads retain the delicate fragrance of roses, a timeless symbol of love and devotion.This discovery resonated deeply with my experience performing Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber’s complete “Rosary (Mystery) Sonatas” recently with my friend and colleague the wonderful harpsichordist and organist Henry Lebedinsky. These sonatas, depicting the Joyful, Sorrowful, and Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary, are a profound and epic journey of virtuosic violin writing and spiritual expression. Inspired by the fragrant rose bead rosaries, I began to explore how Biber’s music might engage each of our five senses.The journey begins visually. Before the music sounds, the musicians see the score: the expressive manuscript of swirling notes, and the evocative etchings that preface each sonata illustrate the story. Next, we hear the music itself. Imagine listening to these sonatas while meditating with a rose bead rosary. The warmth of your fingers releases the beads' subtle rose fragrance and engages your sense of smell.The tactile quality of the beads passing through the fingers creates an embodied and felt connection to the spiritual journey, which mirrors the musician’s physical engagement with the instrument.And finally – taste. After years of baking Springerle (a German Christmas cookie), I discovered historical reproductions of cookie molds from the 16th and 17th centuries that depict all kinds of stories – including stories from the Rosary. Springerle are typically flavored with fragrant anise seeds or anise oil. Pressed and molded cookies like these were a way of sharing stories from the Bible with those who couldn’t read at a time when literacy was not widespread. I’m still looking for an Annunciation mold, but have located wonderful reproduction of a Nativity mold from 1654. Please visit our exhibit table during the intermission to see, smell and feel the beads, see the cookie molds, taste a bite of a cookie, and look at the detail of Dürer’s interpretation of “The Annunciation”.Biber's music is an arresting blend of virtuosic flights of fancy and deeply felt spiritual expression. It engages not only the "head" through its complex contrapuntal writing and groundbreaking use of scordatura (altered tunings), but also the "head" in its intellectual and theological contemplation of the Rosary mysteries. The music touches us directly in our "heart," evoking a powerful emotional response through its sheer beauty, dramatic contrasts, and deep sense of devotion. Both the performer and the listener are active participants with the hands – the violinist and keyboardist playing their instruments and the listener counting the beads of the fragrant rosary.In tomorrow’s program we’ll present the first of Biber’s Rosary (Mystery) Sonatas, The Annunciation, and the second of his 1681 sonatas. The Annunciation tells the story of the angel Gabriel’s appearance to Mary to tell her the news that will change her life forever. While Biber was renowned for pushing the envelope of violin technique, he did not emerge in a vacuum. Schmelzer is thought to have been a teacher of Biber’s, and pieces by Schmelzer’s offered tomorrow – both sets of variations on a ground bass – show a more tender approach.The Erlebach sonata represents the world of scordatura that Biber explored so thoroughly in the Rosary (Mystery) Sonatas. This piece is written for violino piccolo, which is tuned a third higher than a standard violin. This gives it a bright and shining sound, and when woven together with the viola da gamba it is hard to tell where one instrument ends and where the other begins.Each of these works invite us to engage our intellect, our senses and our emotions – our head, hands and heart. This awakening of all the senses invites us into a deeply embodied sense of presence that can be elusive in our hurried times. Whether you think of this experience as a meditation, prayer or contemplation, we hope this music brings you moment a peaceand solace. Tekla Cunningham Director, Whidbey Island Music Festival

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Biber: Music for the Head, Hands, and Heart

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Biber: Music for the Head, Hands, and Heart

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