This CD takes you on a remarkable musical journey as we explore the full potential of the unique combination of a great organ and a violin. Inspired by H.I.F. Biber's Rosenkranz-Sonaten also known as the Mysterien-Sonaten, we have created our own version of a rosary by combining Biber's works with compositions by Buxtehude, J.S. Bach and an anonymous composer. The album develops three central themes: music for both Catholic and Protestant liturgies, the stylus fantasticus, and the combination of violin and organ.

The rosary is both a series of prayers and a string of beads that Roman Catholics use as they recite those prayers. A meditation on a "mystery" or event from the life of Christ or the Virgin Mary is inserted after a set number of prayers have been said. The current form of the rosary originated in the 16th century. In Biber's lifetime there were fifteen mysteries that were organised into three cycles: the five joyful mysteries of life, the five sorrowful mysteries of suffering and death and the five glorious mysteries of the resurrection. Each of Biber's fifteen Rosenkranz-Sonaten is therefore a musical portrayal of a mystery from the life of Christ or the Virgin Mary. For this CD we have selected a number of these sonatas from each of these themes - life, suffering and death, resurrection - and combined them with Protestant chorales in arrangements by Buxtehude, J.S. Bach, and an anonymous composer. This combination of Catholic and Protestant music forms a profound dialogue that not only reflects the mysteries of Christ and the Virgin Mary but is also a symbolic representation of universal and profoundly human experiences and emotions. We here lead our listeners into a personal experience of the rosary, beginning and ending with a passacaglia. Alpha and Omega: the circle is complete.