Biber's Rosary Sonatas are not what we would consider program music since
for all the concrete nature of their inspiration they do not tell stories.
There are a few bits here and there that may be interpreted as storytelling
(e.g., the place where the violin line trails off and leaves the continuo
to finish one of the ascension sonatas on its own or the one of the
ressurection sonatas where the out-of-order tuning of the violin strings
suggests a descent-to-rise-again scenario) but for the most part these
sonatas qualify (to steal Beethoven's phrase from a century or two later)
"as expressions of feeling and not of painting." Rarely have dance meters
been filled with music of such fetching emotionalism.

Aaron J. Rabushka
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