Musical Signification in Biber's Rosary Sonatas
Abstract
This monograph examines musical signification in Heinrich Biber’s Rosary Sonatas (ca. 1678), a set of sixteen pieces for violin and continuo. The sonatas are mostly known for their striking use of scordatura (altered tuning) and the copper-engraved illustrations in the original manuscript that reference the Mysteries of the Rosary, a meditative Marian practice that originated in the Middle Ages. Musical signification and meaning in the Rosary Sonatas have been widely discussed in recent years. The sonatas have been studied in terms of programmaticism and rhetoric, and scholars have proposed the application of broader analytical views that encompass aspects of Biber’s spiritual affiliations as a Bohemian-Austrian baroque Kapellmeister in Salzburg, who was closely related to Rosary confraternities (Gilles 2018, Strand-Polyak 2013). Building on this earlier work, I apply Robert Hatten’s theory of virtual agency to the Rosary Sonatas (Hatten 2018). This theory grants agency to diverse elements of music through perspectives such as gesture, movement, and embodiment, among others. It is divided into four levels of agency: Actants, Agents, Actors, and Subjectivity. Hatten also includes an appendix level called Performance where an analyst/performer can offer practical, performative suggestions that sustain the analytical findings of the previous levels.
Through the application of the theory of virtual agency, I produce interpretative results that greatly enhanced my relationship with and understanding of two Rosary Sonatas, The Annunciation and The Agony. In both cases, the results are subjective and personal but still grounded in Biber’s music. They have practical significance for an analyst/performer as I offer applications to articulation, bowing, choices about dynamic contrast, pacing, among others. Ultimately, the theory of virtual agency not only helped to interpret Biber’s sonatas but to further manifest their connection with the Mysteries of the Rosary.