Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber
Requiem in La maggiore

In Christian religion, the reflection on death is very often given a prominent role: this event, according to Christian Theology, entered the World through our own will, because of Original Sin, and was therefore directly willed by the Devil. But at the same time, it is the means to reunite with the Lord. In Music, the reflection on death is perfectly embodied by the great tradition of Requiem Masses. Famous examples have been offered to us by Mozart, Brahms, Verdi, Fauré, Berlioz and, in the 20th century, Britten and Ligeti. However, the tradition of setting Masses in honor of the deceased to music already began at the time of the Franco-Flemish polyphonists: the first polyphonic Requiems are that of Du Fay (unfortunately lost) and that of Ockeghem.

Unfortunately, little known are the two Requiems by the Bohemian composer and violinist Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber (1644-1704). Known in particular for the 15 Rosary Sonatas for solo Violin, Biber was also a great polyphonist: his Missa Salisburgensis for 53 independent voices is the most complex contrapuntal composition composed before the 20th century. 

Among the two Requiem Masses (one in A Major, the other in F Minor), the first one is particularly noteworthy, composed in 1690. It is a probably unique Work in the history of European Music, where to death, contrary to many other Requiems, is given an almost ferryman-like role of a virtuous soul towards reunion with the Lord. The opening of the Work is extraordinary in its modernity: a Funeral March that begins with the Sieves alone, in an atmosphere of great anticipation for the attack of the rest of the Orchestra, and that almost seems to want to mask its own tonality, seems to anticipate Bruckner's Symphonies, where the key is kept "hidden" for the first bars, only to assert itself decisively later. And that is precisely what happens, more than two hundred years in advance, in this wonderful Requiem: after a few measures, the Trumpets attack in a solemn A Major, accompanying the deceased before the Lord for the final judgment. And it is in the subsequent Requiem Aeternam that the Bohemian reaches the highest expressive peak of the entire composition: a prayer both subdued and convinced, a poignant plea for mercy for the soul of the deceased, expressed particularly by the repeated plea of the Sopranos: "Et Lux Perpetua".

A beautiful interpretation of this genuine pearl of European Sacred Music has been offered to us by the virtuoso of the Cello and Viola da Gamba, as well as conductor, Jordi Savall. Leading the Choir Capella Reial de Catalunya and the instrumentalists of the Concert des Nations, the Spanish conductor manages to highlight all the strings of our Soul touched by Biber, in a hymn to Life after Death.