01	Mensa sonora I in D major - Sonata. Grave - Allegro						01:12
	02	Mensa sonora I in D major - Allamanda						02:27
	03	Mensa sonora I in D major - Courante						01:10
	04	Mensa sonora I in D major - Sarabanda						01:27
	05	Mensa sonora I in D major - Gavotte						01:14
	06	Mensa sonora I in D major - Gigue - Sonatina. Adagio						02:08
	07	Mensa sonora II in F major - Intrada. Alla breve						00:26
	08	Mensa sonora II in F major - Balletto. Alla breve						02:09
	09	Mensa sonora II in F major - Sarabanda						01:54
	10	Mensa sonora II in F major - Balletto. Alla breve						00:43
	11	Mensa sonora II in F major - Sarabanda						01:20
	12	Mensa sonora II in F major - Balletto. Alla breve						00:41
	13	Mensa sonora III in A minor - Gagliarda. Allegro						01:25
	14	III in A minor - Sarabanda						02:20
	15	Mensa sonora III in A minor - Aria						00:45
	16	Mensa sonora III in A minor - Ciacona						04:22
	17	Mensa sonora III in A minor - Sonatina. (Adagio - Presto)						00:47
	18	Sonata representativa, A major, Allegro						02:10
	19	Sonata representativa, A major, Die Nactigall						01:32
	20	Sonata representativa, A major, Cucu						00:38
	21	Sonata representativa, A major, Der Frosch						01:13
	22	Sonata representativa, A major, Allegro: Die Henne, Der Hahn						00:37
	23	Sonata representativa, A major, Allegro: Die Henne, Der Hahn						00:47
	24	Sonata representativa, A major, Die Katz						00:35
	25	Sonata representativa, A major, Musketier-Marsch						00:40
	26	Sonata representativa, A major, (Allemande)						02:20
	27	Mensa sonora IV in B flat major - Sonata. (Grave - Allegro - Adagio)						01:21
	28	Mensa sonora IV in B flat major - Allamanda						01:55
	29	Mensa sonora IV in B flat major - Courante						01:03
	30	Mensa sonora IV in B flat major - Balletto						00:31
	31	Mensa sonora IV in B flat major - Sarabanda						02:20
	32	Mensa sonora IV in B flat major - Gigue. Presto						01:19
	33	Mensa sonora IV in B flat major - Sonatina. Adagio						01:03
	34	Mensa sonora V in E major - Intrada. Allegro						01:09
	35	Mensa sonora V in E major - Balletto						00:33
	36	Mensa sonora V in E major - Trezza						00:54
	37	Mensa sonora V in E major - Gigue						00:52
	38	Mensa sonora V in E major - Gavotte. Alla breve						00:58
	39	Mensa sonora V in E major - Gigue						00:56
	40	Mensa sonora V in E major - Retirada						00:41
	41	Mensa sonora VI in G minor - Soanta. (Adagio - Presto)						00:38
	42	Mensa sonora VI in G minor - Aria						01:22
	43	Mensa sonora VI in G minor - Canario. Presto						00:42
	44	Mensa sonora VI in G minor - Amener						00:41
	45	Mensa sonora VI in G minor - Trezza						00:51
	46	Mensa sonora VI in G minor - Ciacona						04:04
	47	Mensa sonora VI in G minor - Sonatina. Adagio - Presto						00:31

Archiv Catalog Number: 423 701-2 Reinhard Goebel (conductor) Musica Antiqua Koln

“With fresh-sounding violin sonorities"
Reinhard Goebel and Musica Antiqua Ko"ln play chamber music by Biber

The violinist Reinhard Goebel has always been particularly fond of 17th-century German music. Unlike the works of the Italian Arcangelo Corelli and the Italian-born Jean-Baptiste Lully, who spent most of his life in France, instrumental music by Bach's German predecessors is still much less familiar to us today. But in recent years Goebel and his Musica Antiqua Ko"ln have breathed new life into a number of German Baroque composers hitherto little known except in musicological circles. In doing so, Goebel - a tireless champion of early music - has once again obeyed the dictates of his own artistic credo, which he recently formulated as follows: “In spite of occasional excursions into the mainstream repertory, it is the 'unknown' works that remain my true domain, in other words, works that have not yet (re)entered the mainstream repertory. I am far more attracted by the idea of mastering a completely unknown collection of notes on paper by means of my specialist knowledge and the art of interpretation and of giving them recognizable features, a fully fashioned profile and a three-dimensional form than by rendering slightly unfamiliar something that is already sufficiently well known."
In 1987, when Goebel made the present recording, the Bohemian composer Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber was the best known of these unknown musicians. Unlike other 17th-century composers from German-speaking lands such as Rosenmu"ller, Schmelzer and Westhoff, Biber has always been highly regarded by connoisseurs and at no point during the last three centuries has he ever fallen into total oblivion. In 1789 Burney, for example, wrote that „of all the violin players of the last century, Biber seems to have been the best, and his solos are the most difficult and the most fanciful of any Music I have seen of the same period“. By the end of the 19th century a start had been made on a complete edition of Biber's instrumental works within the framework of the Denkma"ler der Tonkunst in O"sterreich. All in all, then, there are good reasons for Deutsche Grammophon's Archiv label to reissue Reinhard Goebel's recording of Biber's Mensa sonora and his Sonata violino solo representativa to mark the tercentenary of their composer's death in 1704. Not only was this the first ever recording of the Mensa sonora (literally, “Sounding Table"), it also marked the starting point of a whole series of recordings of Biber's works by Reinhard Goebel. These have included what is probably Biber's best-known set of works, the Mystery or Rosary Sonatas, together with his monumental Missa Salisburgensis and, most recently, his collection of partitas, Harmonia artificioso-ariosa.

Completed in 1680, the Mensa sonora was subtitled “instrumental table-music with fresh-sounding violin sonorities". In other words, the illustrious audience at the Salzburg court was to be entertained with colourful strains while their taste buds were titillated and they engaged in the usual small talk. Although the six sonate di camera that make up the Mensa sonora are relatively simple in comparison to Biber's other works, they are by no means lacking in charm, elegance and a wealth of musical ideas. Biber had arrived in Salzburg in 1670 after having eked out a miserable existence in the service of the Bishop of Olmu"tz in Moravia. Like a number of his other works, the Mensa sonora is dedicated to his new employer, Archbishop Maximilian Gandolph of Salzburg, in whose service he slowly worked his way up to the position of Court Kapellmeister. Even if these pieces were used at the time as background music and served utilitarian ends, the collection - as Reinhard Goebel wrote on the occasion of its initial release - remains “Biber's most important contribution to the sonata da camera alongside the manuscript balletti from the Olmu"tz Collection and the virtuosically highly demanding partitas of the Harmonia artificioso-ariosa, which were published posthumously in 1712". In the Mensa sonora sonatas, Biber's virtuosity on the violin is held within modest bounds. As a composer, by contrast, “he pays tribute to his princely dedicatee by drawing on every known artifice".

Reinhard Goebel has interpolated Biber's Sonata violino solo representativa between the third and fourth sonatas from the Mensa sonora - in other words, at the midway point in the set. The Sonata violino solo representativa was written in 1669 and as such dates from the composer's period in Olmu"tz. It was probably composed for the carnival balls that the bishop organized for the Moravian nobility. Here the Baroque delight in whimsical drollery finds unbridled expression and thereby provides a contrast with the relatively undemanding Mensa sonora. As such, it is a piece entirely to Reinhard Goebel's taste: „I like things to be offensively and garishly colourful. After all, it is said that colours in the Age of the Baroque were very intense and luminous.“ Goebel describes the Sonata violino solo representativa as “one of the most explosive examples of 17th-century programme music. Following the opening two-part sonata, we hear a nightingale, cuckoo, hen and cockerel, with frogs and toads adding their own contribution in the form of strident dissonances; a cat evidently chases away this musical bestiary but then makes itself scare in the face of the musketeer who comes crashing in before finally yielding in turn to the courtier allegorized in the Allemande." Here the violinist is required to run the full gamut of his skills, exploring extreme positions, engaging in double-stopping and evincing a mastery of scordatura, with its retuning of the instrument's strings. Brief but delightfully drawn character pictures are evoked for the listener's delectation, while the apparent strangeness of the result not only reveals the composer's sense of humour but makes the work sound curiously modern in places.

In programming the Mensa sonora with the Sonata violino solo representativa, Reinhard Goebel presents two very different aspects of Biber's chamber music, while at the same time demonstrating in a subtly differentiated yet graphically striking way that Biber was one of the most interesting of all 17th-century composers, endlessly fascinating from a musical point of view and with an outstanding degree of craftsmanship at his command.

Andrea Hechtenberg
(Translation: Stewart Spencer)