Luogo e data di registrazione		Pieterskerk, Utrecht (Holland) - 22/24 ottobre 1994
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Executive producer		Jan Höfermann
	Producer		Peter Laenger
	Balance engineer		Stephan Schellmann
	Edited | Master		Gabriele Starke | Peter Laenger
	Prima Edizione LP		Nessuna
	Edizione CD		Deutsche Harmonia Mundi (BMG) | LC 0761 | 05472 77344 2 | 1 CD - durata 63' 38" | (p) 1995 | DDD
	Cover Art		Cornelius Kruseman: Die Grablegung Christi
	Note		-

Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber (1644-1704) The composer Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber was born in 1644 in the Bohemian town of Wartenberg (now Stráz), which was then under the rule of the Wallenstein family. He probably attended a local Jesuit college, and later studied in Vienna as a pupil of the violinist and court Kapellmeister Johann Heinrich Schmelzer. The first position that we know Biber to have occupied was that of violinist in the court band of the Prince-Bishop of Olmütz, Count Karl of Liechtenstein-Castelcorno, at Kremsier (Kromeríz) in central Moravia. In 1670 Biber departed the Kremsier court on a visit to the Tyrolean violin-maker Jakob Stainer, and not long after we find him in the employ of the Archbishop of Salzburg, Maximilian von Khuenburg. He was appointed assistant Kapellmeister at the Salzburg court in 1679, and five years later he was promoted to the rank of Kapellmeister: as such, he bore overall responsibility for the music at court and in Salzburg Cathedral. Although Biber’s name is not so wellknown today, he enjoyed a considerable reputation in his own lifetime, his fame resting chiefly on his secular compositions. Many of his works appeared in print, thus giving them a circulation well beyond the confines of Salzburg, and Biber himself also performed his own works as an itinerant violin virtuoso. Such was his renown that in 1690 Emperor Leopold I. raised him to the nobility. Biber died in Salzburg in 1704, and his son, K. H. von Bibern, later became Kapellmeister in turn at the Salzburg court, in which position he was the direct predecessor of Leopold Mozart. Biber has gone down in music history first and foremost as a violinist and as the composer of many instrumental works, especially for his own instrument, the violin. Only since the 1920’s, however, have his sacred compositions begun to receive the attention they deserve. After the publication of the Missa Sancti Henrici (available on CD on the dhm label) and the Requiem à 5, it was not until 1977 that the next edition of a Biber mass appeared, namely the Requiem à 15 that is the subject of this recording. In this connection, the original manuscript of the Requiem à 15 kindled interest in the so-called Missa Salisburgensis, a work with a staggering 54 parts, likewise available on the dhm label, which was formerly ascribed to O. Benevoli. The similarity of the handwriting in both manuscripts and a, variety of stylistic similarities enabled musicologists to establish Biber as the author of the latter work. Both these settings of the Mass make an important contribution to the history of church music, particlarly in terms of their multichoral layout. Biber shows himself here to be the capable heir of his predecessor A. Hofer, who had already practised the technique of creating a concertante dialogue between instrumental and vocal groups. Records show that such groups of singers or musicians were distributed between the four column galleries at the crossing in Salzburg Cathedral from 1675 onwards. Moreover, the adoption of multichoral performance in Salzburg was in fact an intensification of the massive Venetian Baroque style already practised in Vienna under Christoph Straus and the Gabrieli pupil G. Priulli. The multichoral style developed by Biber for the unusual architectural setting of Salzburg Cathedral is one of the high points of festive display in Baroque choral music. Requiem à 15 Biber’s Requiem à 15 is undated, but the large ensemble it is scored for, and in particular the inclusion of a brass section, indicate that it was written for a funeral of exceptional importance, probably that of Archbishop Maximilian von Khuenberg in 1687. The festivities surrounding the burial of the Archbishop lasted no less than six days, and began with the solemn washing of the body, the transfer of the heart to Maria Plain and the embalming of the body. After this, the corpse was clad in the Archbishop’s robes with his insignia of office and was then laid out in state in the Residence. There were church services to accompany these events. The records of the Cathedral chapter mention a total of 20 canons and 8 choirmasters who were responsible for the performance of the offices in these six days. In addition, there were three extra services that were celebrated with great ceremony, and were attended by the entire court and by the chapter. The climax of the solemnities, whose cost amounted to several thousand florins, was the transfer of the mortal remains to the cathedral on 9th May 1687. The funeral procession was made up of various religious fraternities, members of St. Peter’s Monastery, the court and all the leading prelates. Thus the records of the event list the individual members of the Cathedral chapter, the prelates and abbots, the Dean of the Cathedral (who was also the celebrant) and the Abbot of St. Peter’s. The procession was rounded off by 12 pallbearers, the city magistrate and various representatives of the city council, the army and the guilds. The procession wound its way to the Cathedral, which was decorated with black hangings and elaborate lighting for the occasion. The Archbishop’s coffin was laid on the bier before the main altar, and the mass for the dead was then celebrated and absolution given. It seems highly likely that Biber’s Requiem à 15 formed the musical decorum at this concluding mass. In contrast to present-day practice, the music was not heard as one continuous piece: it was incorporated into the liturgy, with the different sections of the composition being allocated to the corresponding liturgical sequence. Thus the Introitus is resplendently sung by the entire body of vocalists after the celebrant has introduced the mass. The splendour of the Introitus is derived not from a complex setting in many parts, but from the tonal contrast between the vocal and the instrumental parts, which were divided up between the four galleries of the crossing in Salzburg: one gallery was occupied by the conductor with the vocal soloists, the strings had a gallery to themselves, and the wind instruments and the tutti choir were spread over the other two galleries. Each of the four galleries was equipped with its own organ. The parts of the Requiem that followed were also performed with the singers and musicians arranged as described. In keeping with the layout of the Cathedral, the musical sequences alternate slowly between two harmonies. But at certain points, especially in the Dies irae, bold harmonies are deployed in the spirit of the musical rhetoric of the Baroque era. Overall, Biber aims at an atmosphere appropriate to a Baroque requiem for a person of high standing. Thus it is not mourning, but the need for magnificent display that determines the choice of A major as the predominant key. Agostino Steffani (1654-1728) The composer, diplomat and priest Agostino Steffani has only recently found his way into the musical limelight. A couple of his operas have reappeared in the repertoire of some opera houses, e.g. Enrico Leone, written in 1689 for the inauguration of the theatre in Braunschweig, and Niobe, which was written a year earlier for performance in Munich. Steffani’s work at the court of Ferdinand Maria, Elector of Bavaria, and his subsequent position as Kapellmeister to the Hanover court had a stimulating and lasting influence on his career as an opera composer. Parallel to his musical activities, Steffani embarked on a career of a very different kind: in 1680 he was ordained as a priest, and he was made Bishop of Spiga in partibus (Spiga was a titular bishopric) in 1707. He was also a successful diplomat, holding office as president of the local government in Düsseldorf and as rector and chancellor of Heidelberg University. In 1709 he found himself in Rome, mediating in one of the frequent disputes between the Emperor and the Pope. After this, Steffani was appointed apostolic vicar for Germany. In the years after 1722, a combination of administrative work and lack of money involved him in extensive travels, e.g. to visit his patron L. Fr. von Schönborn and the Archbishop of Mainz, and to Frankfurt am Main, where he died of a stroke in 1728. Steffani’s importance as a composer is based primarily on his secular oeuvre (cantatas and duets), while his operas, much admired in their day, derive their historical significance from the introduction of Italian and French influences to Germany. However, Steffani’s sacred works, which were initially inspired by his studies with the Carissimi pupil Johann Kaspar Kerll and with Bernabei in Rome, are well worth exploring in order to complete our picture of this talented ‘all-rounder’ of the Baroque era. Stabat Mater The rhyming sequence Stabat Mater is a devotional poem attributed to the 13th century writer Jacopone da Todi. It was officially incorporated into the Roman Catholic liturgy as part of the mass for the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin (15th September) in 1727, but was already much used both for private devotion and in mass after the Council of Trent (1543-63), which restricted the number of sequences to four. The text of the Stabat Mater consists of 20 strophes of three lines each, and has its origin in the cult of the Virgin and of the Passion practised by the Franciscan order. Its popularity is reflected by many musical settings, among them by composers as varied as Palestrina, Caldara, Alessandro Scarlatti, Pergolesi, Michael Haydn, Liszt, Dvorak and Penderecki. Steffani‘s Stabat Mater for six voices, six strings and organ has survived in a copy made by the Handel scholar Karl Chrysander (1826-1901), while in our own time H. Sievers produced. a revised version of the work in his edition of 1953 (where the work is referred to as having been “composed after 1706”). Steffani divides up the 20 strophes of the poem into twelve movements, which contrast with one another by means of solo or choral setting with instrumental aeeompaniment. (In his own setting of the Stabat Mater, Steffani’s contemporary Pergolesi also set the text in 12 movements, but his text divisions are different.) As stile ecclesiastico, Steffani’s compositional style is deliberately antiquated in places, with many suspensions and discords being included to emphasize the atmosphere of grief. But Steffani also makes use of contemporary, i,e, Baroque techniques in the shape of rhetorical figures in the music that reflect the contents of the text. Thus we find trembling effects in no. 2, and in no. 4 the music imitates the scourging of Christ. In the latter movement, the descending melody also conjures up a mood of humility. Descending bass lines (a lamento bass in no. 8.to represent the weeping) and other figures (no. 9) likewise interpret the text in music. The composer puts the finishing touches to this ‘musical painting’ by changing the key in nos. 7-10, and by introducing long pauses and unusual cadenzas at the beginning of the last movement to emphasise our own mortality. Dr. Werner Jaksch English translation: Clive Williams, Hamburg