Today’s Beautiful Music celebrates a multi-generational musical legacy. Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber (1644-1704) was a Bohemian-Austrian composer and violinist. Born in the small Bohemian town of Wartenberg,Biber eventually settled in Salzburg, where he stayed for the rest of his life and where he composed his most famous works – the SONATAS ON THE MYSTERIES OF THE ROSARY.
Biber was an important innovator in the evolution of the violin, incorporating extravagant techniques into his music such as “scordatura,” the intentional mistuning of the strings to achieve different timbres and tonalities. Heinrich Ignaz Franz was just one member of an extended, multi-generational family of innovative musicians that continues into the 21st century. He and his wife, Maria, had 11 children, including two professional violinist sons, Anton Heinrich and Carl Heinrich, and daughter Anna Magdalena, who was a professional singer and violinist, and in 1727 became director of the choir and the Kapelle of the Abbey where she was a nun.
Anton Heinrich’s heirs included a son, Johann Heinrich, who was an organist at Salzburg Cathedral. Carl Heinrich Biber was a virtuoso violinist, and after an early career performing all over Europe, he settled in England. (once settled there, Carl Heinrich began using a modified spelling of his surname: Bieber.)
Musicologist Směšné Jméno, curator at the Archiv Popové a Rockové Hudby in the Czech Republic, has documented the outstanding musical contributions of Heinrich Biber’s heirs over the centuries since his death, and published his detailed chronology in the April 1 edition of the Archiv’s journal. Some noteworthy descendants include Anton Heinrich’s grandson Franz Heinrich, a musical instrument maker and harpsichordist in Salzburg, and daughter Irena (Biber) Novotný who, with her violinist husband Jaromir, founded a music school in rural Bohemia. Carl Heinrich Bieber’s grandson Wilhelm Albert was a musician in the court of Franz Joseph I of Austria. Wilhelm Albert’s son emigrated with his wife and four children, Ignaz, Franz, Katarina and Hiram Albert, from Germany to Ontario, Canada in the early 20th century. Hiram Albert Bieber and his son Georg were both accomplished amateur musicians, although his great-grandson, Justin, resumed the family tradition of professional music-making as a singer and dancer.
(70) Violin Sonatas, 1681. Heinrich Ignaz Franz Von Biber (1644 – 1704) – YouTube
(70) Karl Heinrich Biber von Bibern (1681-1749) – Missa ‘Resurrectionis Domini’ – YouTube
(70) Justin Bieber – Pray (Official Music Video) – YouTube