Der Türken Anmarsch

Name: Der Türken Anmarsch
SKU: 73957
Price: 18.90 EUR
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John Holloway

Holloway’s ECM recordings have received the highest critical praise. Of his earlier Biber album, Goldberg magazine wrote, “This is a disc of such stunningly brilliant virtuosity that it is hard to know where to start. This is music capable of moving from dynamic energy to eloquence in less time than it takes to write the words, music that can hurtle forward with seemingly unstoppable momentum only to fall back to calm, sensuous lyricism, music that can encompass everything from skilled counterpoint to rumbustious humour. Holloway’s performance encompasses all of this with playing of amazing fluency and bravura passion… a staggering celebration of the art of violin playing”.

Featured Artists

John HollowayViolin
Aloysia AssenbaumOrgan
Lars Ulrik MortensenHarpsichord

Recorded

July 2002, Propstei St. Gerold

Original Release Date

18.10.2004

1Sonata "Victori der Christen" ("The victory of the Christians over the Turks") A minor
(Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber)09:39
Sonatae Violino solo
(Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber)
2Sonata I (A major)11:15
3Sonata II (D dorian)08:24
4Sonata V (E minor)10:48
5Sonata VIII (A major)09:23
6Sonata D major
(Georg Muffat)12:52

Holloway is very much at home with the developing and sometimes, as here, startlingly original idiom of 17th-century violin music. This volume, in common with the earlier one confirms the stylish and virtuosic way in which he is able to bring this exhilarating music to life. … And his sympathetic continuo players are praiseworthy throughout.

Nicholas Anderson, BBC Music Magazine

This disc (once again) confirms that they are amongst the very best Biber interpreters around. The Muffat sonata is, in its own – very different – way an astonishing piece, with a central section full of audacious enharmonic twists and technical demands far in excess of anything he requires of violinists elsewhere in his output, framed by sections of typical grace. If you haven’t treated yourself to a CD of Biber and Muffat this centenary year, this could be the one – beautiful music played by masters of the art.

Brian Clark, Early Music Review

Holloway approaches these works less with a view to their virtuosity, but with regard fort the depth of their content – an approach I find consistently satisfying. This is especially true of one additional work on this recording, the unique solo violin sonata by Georg Muffat. This is an extensive composition, and it even includes intricate enharmonic modulations in its middle section. … For any serious collector of this music … this is essential.

Brewer, American Record Guide

Biber war der Paganini des Barocks, der die Geige an die Grenze des damals Möglichen und gern darüber hinaustrieb: Skordaturen, Doppelgriffe, Arpeggien, je schwerer desto lieber. Der englische Geiger John Holloway hat für ECM schon vier der acht Sonaten Bibers für Violine und Basso continuo eingespielt und legt nun auf seiner neuesten CD neben dem Türken-Stück die restlichen vier Sonaten sowie eine des Biber-Zeitgenossen Georg Muffat nach.

Wer Bibers Musik mit der von Bach vergleicht, könnte enttäuscht sein... Doch die Qualitäten des in Salzburg zu Ruhm gekommenen Biber liegen woanders: Es ist sein Einfallsreichtum – die Musik schlägt immer wieder frappierende Volten. Eine wilde Toccata kippt unvermittelt in eine herzzerreißende Aria, eine Variationskette mündet in eine Funken sprühende Presto-Gigue. Und in der lakonischen Leichtigkeit, mit der Holloway die Tücken bewältigt, lässt er ahnen, welch furchtloser Zeitgenosse Biber gewesen sein muss.

Frank Armbruster, Stuttgarter Zeitung

Holloway legt Biber sehr weiträumig an. Weniger den unzähligen liebevoll gedrechselten Details gilt sein Augenmerk als der großzügigen Geste, der Stringenz der Formverläufe. Zumal der edel fokussierte Klang auch in den schwierigsten Passagen nie an Klarheit verliert. Geradezu frappierend ist die Eleganz des Akkord- und Doppelgriffspiels.

Anselm Cybinski, Fono Forum

Voll, rund und ruhig ist der Klang von Holloways Violine, die oft doppelte Unterstützung durch Cembalo und Orgel sorgt für warme und doch nur selten dicke Verpackung des Soloparts. Was an technischen Tricks und Gags eingebaut ist – die geradezu artistischen Doppelgriffe, die Stürze durch einen weiten Tonraum in der e-Moll-Sonate oder die Simulation von zwei Geigen mit nur einer einzigen in der A-Dur-Sonate – wirkt erst beim genaueren Hören spektakulär: Holloway bewältigt auch das Knifflige mit Eleganz, und mehr als Knalleffekt und Oberflächenkitzel interessiert ihn die Substanz dieser Tonsprache. Ein Virtuose, dem es nicht ums Virtuose geht.

Susanne Kübler, Tages-Anzeiger

“Der Türken Anmarsch”, a recording distinguished by extraordinarily inventive and committed performances, marks “the end of an era” for John Holloway. The album brings to a conclusion fourteen years of intensive work on Biber’s music. “I have come to an ever greater admiration of Biber,” Holloway says, “and of his immense contribution to the development of the violin as a serious instrument for Western music.” As with his previous album “Unam Ceylum”, the British violinist and his associates perform pieces from Biber’s 1681 anthology, Sonatae Violino solo, which formed the cornerstone of his reputation. They show how secular and sacred concerns are interwoven in music as arresting and as innovative as the “Mystery Sonatas”.

In the liner notes, Peter Wollny writes: “Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber (1644-1704), chapel-master at Salzburg, has gone down in history as one of the greatest violinists of his age. His astonishing prowess can be seen not only in the demanding violin parts he wrote in his music for instrumental and vocal ensemble, but especially in his many sonatas for solo violin. But Biber, in his compositions, was concerned with more than simply flaunting his extraordinary virtuosity: as he stressed several times in the prefaces to his printed editions, his music was meant to be pervaded - and thereby legitimized - by his compositional skills. In making good this claim, he also acquired the reputation of being one of the supreme composers of his generation.”

“Der Türken Anmarsch” takes its title from Biber’s A-Minor Sonata. Some questions remain regarding authorship of parts of the work, for the manuscript is attributed to Schmelzer. Andreas Anton Schmelzer, son of the great violinist composer Johann Heinrich Schmelzer, apparently reworked a piece by Biber to relate it to events of 1683, when the Turks launched an assault on the city of Vienna. Though the programmatic theme – Islam versus Christianity – has lost none of its topicality over three centuries, there is little indication that religious war was on Biber’s mind when he structured the piece. Large parts of the composition clearly stem from Biber’s tenth sonata in the “Mystery Cycle”, intended to depict the crucifixion in the original context.”

This CD is the third volume in a conceptual trilogy which began with “Unarum Fidium” (music of Schmelzer, primarily, but also embracing Bertali and an anonymously-composed sonata most likely from Biber’s pen), and the all-Biber “Unam Ceylum” – a prize-winning and internationally acclaimed disc. The new recording traces the historical transition from Biber to Muffat and “completes a look at a brilliant offshoot of the explosion of violin music in 17th century Italy, an offshoot which in many ways outgrew its forebears south of the Alps, but which died at beginning of the 18th century with Biber and Muffat.” (2004 marks the 300th anniversary of the death of both composers).

The three albums have been linked by a basso continuo sound “almost never heard in baroque solo instrumental music: harpsichord and organ played simultaneously by two players, each realising the figured bass to the full harmonic, contrapuntal and rhythmic potential of their instrument.” The challenges were considerable, but Aloysia Assenbaum and Lars Ulrik Mortensen established a framework “in which both players felt able to express themselves freely while contributing effectively and idiomatically to the total sound.” The result has been some exceptionally joyous music-making, with Holloway’s amazingly fluid violin-playing drawing inspiration also from the vigorous support offered by his co-musicians.

Aloysia Assenbaum, who had been fighting serious illness through this period, was to die six months later; her final performances were on an American tour with Holloway and Mortensen, playing music from the ECM recordings. As Holloway notes, “Everyone who came into contact with her was amazed by her energy and radiance, especially while making music...The wonderful sonata by Muffat which closes this recording – a work whose structure and character so nearly resembles a life – is a fitting tribute and farewell.”