Biber for lutes

Updated 4.9.2008. Arto Wikla 7.3.2008.
News: (4.9.2008) Now there is also Vimeo version with better video quality (recording is the same). / (24.6.2008) Now there is also my unpolished and un-virtuosic YouTube performance of my archlute arrangement!

Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber (1644-1704) published his famous Passagalia for solo violin as the final piece of his great Mystery Sonatas - Rosenkranz-Sonaten. The Passagalia is a wonderful work of art - the complexity of the simplicity. Johan Tufvesson has published a Modernised Urtext of the piece in his pages. There are also versions for baroque lute in d-minor tuning, see Roman Turovsky's pages.

I have made my own versions of this wonderful piece of art for lutes tuned in the "renaissance tuning", which is also the "italian baroque tuning". My arrangements are based on the Tufvesson edition of the Passagalia (pdf). The arrangements are quite free and they are guided by the instruments' needs and possibilities. Heavily changed bars have been marked to the tabulatures. There are not very many of them. Anyway, you can easily compare my versions to the original and make some "reverse engineering", if you wish!

My lute versions of the Passagalia by Biber:

[(28.4.2008) There is an error in Tufvesson edition - and was in my versions - in interpreting the bar 9 of the original:


Now it is corrected in both my versions. There is also a tiny addition in bar 35. And a little change in the bar 75 of the 6 course version. The midis will not be corrected, they are just mechanical anyway...:-]

Both versions, the 6-course version and the archlute version, have some fingerings that suit to my fingers. I hope they'll help you to find your own...


Happy playing!


See also my pages French theorbo music / Archlute music / 10-course lute music / Chitarrone music / Chitarrino music.
There are also some other arrangements, intabulations, etc. in my Contributions page.
Visitor Counter by
Digits
(by WebCounter) (start 7.3.2008)