Biber for lutes

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:

• 6-course lute (pdf): Is this art or sport? Well, the violin has only 4 strings... :-)
  This is a classical "thumb under", "thumb-index", renaissance lute version. Some very fast runs have been "recomposed" to make it possible for lute. The melody goes very high -- 12th fret -- in section 63-72. Many sections of the piece are perhaps useful also as "thumb-index" etydes? Bars 52, 112, 103-106 and 115-120 differ most from the violin version.

  There is also a mechanically produced midi-file of this arrangement. It is not meant for artistic enjoyment, but perhaps it is interesting to hear, how the piece sounds, and maybe it is also useful when practising the piece?

• Archlute (pdf): I think this version is a little easier for making art...
  This version is harmonized in the archlute way. Actually more than 9 courses are used only in the middle section (bars 77-92). And if you can play the piece at all, you certainly are able to edit that part to fit in the number of your courses... ;-)
  In this version the high section (bars 63-72) is taken down an octave - so there are no 12th fret notes in the archlute version! To me it sounds better on archlute this way, but if you like the athletics, you can easily borrow the high section from the 6-course version: just set the bass line to the bass strings and play the runs up to the 12th fret... Also in the archlute version the very fast runs have been "recomposed". Bars 52, 61-72, 112, 103-106 and 115-120 differ most from the violin version.

  There is also a mechanically produced midi-file of this arrangement. It is not meant for artistic enjoyment, but perhaps it is interesting to hear, how the piece sounds, and maybe it is also useful when practising the piece?

  (24.6.2008) Now there is also my unpolished and un-virtuosic YouTube performance of my archlute arrangement! And technically a little better version in Vimeo.

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...