A musical celebration of the five Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary, bringing prayer and Baroque music together at St Gregory the Great, Cheltenham.

The Rosary will be prayed in its traditional sequence, with each of the five decades followed by the corresponding work from Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber’s extraordinary Rosary Sonatas: The Resurrection, The Ascension, The Descent of the Holy Spirit, The Assumption, and The Coronation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. All sonatas are arranged for the baroque organ by August Guan.

Rather than presenting the sonatas as a conventional concert programme, the music becomes part of the devotional structure itself: after each mystery has been prayed, Biber’s corresponding sonata serves as an extended musical meditation upon it.

Following the Fifth Glorious Mystery and the fifteenth Rosary Sonata, Biber’s concluding Passacaglia completes the instrumental cycle. The service then concludes with the Salve Regina and the Magnificat.

This public event offers an unusual opportunity to encounter Biber’s music within the spiritual and meditative context that inspired the Rosary Sonatas.

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