Biber: Rosary Sonatas CD review – fantastically complex

Rachel Podger (violin)
(Channel Classics) (2 CDs)I can remember so well some 40 years ago being utterly taken aback by an unaccompanied violin Chaconne by Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber. Since then, Biber has become the mountain every period violinist wants to climb, and that Chaconne revealed as the last movement of a set of 16 sonatas depicting the mysteries of the rosary. They are fantastically complex works, with different violin tunings and multiple stoppings, so that Rachel Podger’s acco