Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber (1644-1704) - Litaniae Lauretanae (1693)
Performers: Colegium Vocale Salzburg; Albert Hartinger (1946-2020, leitung)
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Austrian violinist and composer of Bohemian birth. He was the
outstanding violin virtuoso of the 17th century and a first-rate
composer; he wrote instrumental or vocal, sacred or secular music with
equal ease. His fame rests mainly upon his violin sonatas, especially
those which require scordatura, but his polychoral church music has also
attracted interest and admiration. Biber may have had some music
lessons, perhaps by the organist Wiegand Knöffee, in his birthplace,
which was the property of Count Maximilian Liechtenstein-Castelcorno,
brother of the Bishop of Olmütz. He may have studied at a Jesuit
Gymnasium in Bohemia, and in the early 1660s he was already on friendly
terms with Pavel Vejvanovský, who was then studying with the Jesuits in
Troppau. Before 1668 Biber was a musician in the service of Prince
Johann Seyfried Eggenberg in Graz, where Philipp Jakob Rittler and Jakob
Prinner were also employed. In 1668 he became a valet de chambre and
musician to the Bishop of Olmütz, Karl Liechtenstein-Castelcorno, in
Kroměříž, where Pavel Vejvanovský was director of the Kapelle. Biber was
popular among the courtiers at Kroměříž, and was highly valued as a
violin virtuoso. In late summer 1670 the bishop sent Biber to the violin
maker Jacob Stainer in Absam to negotiate the purchase of new
instruments for his ensemble. Instead of visiting the violin maker,
however, Biber entered the service of the Archbishop of Salzburg,
Maximilian Gandolph von Khuenburg. Liechtenstein felt greatly injured by
this action but refrained from reprisals against his former employee
out of friendship for Archbishop Khuenburg. He contented himself with
waiting until 1676 to make out the document officially releasing Biber
from his service. Biber regularly sent works to Kroměříž in order to win
the bishop’s goodwill.
Biber’s career flourished in Salzburg. At the end of 1670 he had been
classed among the valets de chambre, porters and stokers of fires at
court, with a relatively small monthly salary of about ten florins, but
the archbishop appreciated music for string instruments and Biber rose
rapidly in the social scale. In the years 1676–84 he dedicated four
printed collections of instrumental music to the archbishop. On 30 May
1672, in Hellbrunn, he married Maria Weiss, daughter of a merchant and
citizen of Salzburg. In 1677 Biber performed several of his sonatas in
Laxenburg before Emperor Leopold I, who gave him a gold chain, and early
in 1679 he was appointed deputy Kapellmeister. When he performed before
the emperor for the second time, in 1681, he petitioned him for
promotion to the ranks of the nobility. Biber distinguished himself as a
composer on the occasion of the jubilee celebrations of 1682, and in
1684, after the death of Andreas Hofer, was appointed Kapellmeister and
dean of the choir school. After a second application to Emperor Leopold
in 1690, he was raised to the noble rank of knight, with the title of
Biber von Bibern. Subsequently the new archbishop, Johann Ernst, Count
Thun, appointed him lord high steward, a title that marked the
culmination of the composer’s social career. In his later years Biber
seems to have devoted himself to the composition of sacred music, operas
and school dramas. Of the dramatic works only one opera is extant; only
the librettos of the others remain. He wrote his last school drama in
1698, his last opera in 1699. Biber had 11 children, only four of whom
survived childhood: his sons Anton Heinrich (1679-1742) and Karl
Heinrich (1681-1749) and his daughters Maria Cäcilia (b.1674) and Anna
Magdalena (1677-1742). They were all musically gifted and received a
good musical education from their father.
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