Music I Like, #2: Passacaglia in G Minor by Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber

One of the things I love about classical music is the complexity and beauty of its structure, and the piece I choosing to share today requires some explanations of those structures. The word passacaglia comes from the Spanish words pasa calle, to walk down the street. It first appears in seventeenth century instrumental music as an interlude between dances or songs and often has the form of a set of variations over a sustained bass line called an ostinato.

The Austrian violinist and composer Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber (1644-1704) is known for the way that his music expanded and explored the possibilities of the violin as a musical instrument. This is especially apparent Biber's fifteen Rosary Sonatas, each of which was written to illustrate a different meditation on the life of Christ or the Virgin Mary. Many of them use a technique called scordatura, in which the violinist tunes the strings of their instrument to non-standard pitches in pursuit of different harmonies and textures. The series of sonatas ends with a sixteenth piece, one of the most famous Baroque passacaglias, and one of my favourite pieces of music.

I learned and played this on the viola, so I am giving you a link to a recording by the violist Wenting Kang.