Ten years in the past, Rachel Podger made a ideally suited recording of Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber’s Rosary Sonatas for solo violin and continuo, every of which portrays an episode in the lifestyles of Christ. Now she provides a disc of extra sonatas by arguably the ideally suited baroque composer for the violin after JS Bach – 5 of the assortment of eight that Biber printed in 1681, in addition to the quasi-theatrical Sonata Representivo, which would perhaps also or can also now not savor been light by Biber and with out doubt dates from 1669.

The objects are all characterised by their extreme technical difficulty, and namely by their in depth exercise of scordatura, when particular particular person violin strings are tuned in every other case from abnormal. Podger copes with all these challenges moderately brilliantly, alongside side imitating the sounds of animals in the Sonata Representivo; she brings an expressive freedom that underneath no circumstances takes too many liberties, nevertheless stays correct to the spirit of the music. If the works themselves are now not moderately as startling and shiny because the Rosary Sonatas, anyone who enjoyed Podger’s outdated advance upon with Biber will completely enjoy this one, too.

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