Only 10 years ago we were celebrating the 350th birthday of the Bohemian Heinrich Biber; now it’s time to commemorate the tercentenary of his death. Biber’s most famous work, the set of ‘Mystery’ or ‘Rosary’ violin sonatas probably composed in the mid-1670s, was dedicated to his employer, the prince-archbishop of Salzburg. The first 15, divided into three equal groups, are meditations on events in the life of the Virgin; the 16th is a Passacaglia, separate from the Mysteries. In the sole surviving manuscript, all are prefixed by an appropriate illustration and most make use of scordatura, the retuning of some or all of the strings.

Listening to all the sonatas at one sitting is not to be recommended, as there is a sameness about the pieces that could become wearying. Biber was a virtuoso on the violin, and he typically writes extended flourishes over a pedal point, at the start of a piece or approaching a final cadence. The abundant variation movements are always on an unchanging ground bass, with no overlapping of phrases in the violin to add interest and propel the music forward.

That there are still many things to enjoy is due to the excellence of Les Veilleurs de Nuit. Alice Piérot dashes off the pyrotechnics with fearsome ease, but she also brings the sensibility of a true musician to the more reflective passages such as the final Adagio of the third sonata (‘The Nativity’), which is both simple and heartfelt. She gives the impression of extemporising in the Praeludium of No 5 (‘The 12-year-old Jesus in the Temple’), and the dances skip along like the rams and young sheep of the psalmist.

Elisabeth Geiger plays the claviorganum, a hybrid beast comprising a harpsichord and a two-manual organ. The powerful tones of the latter lend special force to the sonatas reflecting the Agony in the Garden and the Crucifixion, and the occasional use of the four-foot stop on its own makes for a pleasing variety. But the finest piece is surely the unaccompanied Passacaglia (‘The Guardian Angel’), variations over a descending four-note phrase, which Alice Piérot dispatches with a perfect balance between architecture and emotion. The booklet includes five vignettes from the manuscript; it’s a pity that room couldn’t be found for all 16.

The Avie recording scores by including the complete set on the cover of the booklet. Each sonata is introduced by an exhortation from a Jesuit Rosary psalter, presumably translated from the Latin, read by Timothy West in tones ranging from the measured to the impassioned. The continuo group play in various permutations, one sonata being very effectively accompanied by a double-stopping gamba.

Other differences include a repeat of the sarabandes in two of the sonatas, and decorations from the lute interpolated into the opening phrases of ‘The Descent of the Holy Ghost’. Pavlo Beznosiuk is quite the equal of Alice Piérot in virtuosity and musicianship, and in his use of spiccato he introduces a positively skittish note to ‘The Coronation of Mary’. I slightly prefer the brisker approach of Alice Piérot in the Passacaglia, but there’s not much in it.

The main interest of the disc of choral music lies in the four offertories, three of them written for a saint’s day. The most attractive are Ne cedite montes and Lux perpetua, which show a welcome trans-Alpine warmth and grace. The solo singing is more than adequate, never outstanding.

The Requiem, like the offertories, is scored for soloists, chorus and strings, with sackbuts doubling the lower voices. It’s a sombre piece, all too seldom leaving the home key of F minor, and with word-setting that in places verges on the perfunctory. The ear is tickled by the rhythmic ambiguity of ‘Judex ergo’, but the rest is pretty unmemorable. Some may consider that the disc offers short measure but, believe me, 50 minutes are plenty.