‘Priest-composer stabs alto castrato during Mass!’ Such fervent Catholicism is hardly imaginable nowadays. The present recording will remedy that: the Austian violinist Gunar Letzbor revives the strange work of murderer-composer Antonio Pandolfi Mealli with a full-blooded performance that succeeds in captivating us from beginning to end.' Eberhard Zummach, Concerto. Das Magazin für Alte Musik no. 214

Wenzel Ludwig Edler von Radolt’s collection of lute music entitled ”To my most true and confiding friend”, inclined both to the merry and to the sad humours, herewith in the company of other faithful vassals of our innermost sensibility’ was printed in 1701 in Vienna by J(oh)ann Michael Nestler and bears a dedication to the then‚ Roman King’ Josef I.
Radolt was of Austro-Italian aristocratic descent. He was born and died in Vienna. According to his own account, he spent his life ”so allured by the beguiling countenance of most pleasurable music, as to dedicate the course of my life to her“. The ‘Most true and confiding friend’ is the only work of Radolt that survives today.

Eduard Melkus brought Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber's (1644-1704) Rosary Sonatas (Rosenkranzsonaten) to new life with his groundbreaking 1967 recording; in the six decades that have passed since then, the pieces, which are as virtuoso as they are meditative in mood, have conquered a firm place in the discographies of ambitious baroque violinists. The Austrian violinist Gunar Letzbor has been considered one of the leading interpreters of this famous cycle since he recorded his interpretation on album for the Arcana label in 1996. The success was overwhelming: the critics were enthusiastic and the recording is still today available in the label's catalogue.

Ars Antiqua Austria This renowned ensemble was founded in Linz in 1995 by Gunar Letzbor and Michael Oman with a core group of eight musicians dedicated to the task of authentically interpreting Austrian music of the Baroque era. To this end, the group performed on original instruments of the period and devoted much energy to researching and uncovering works that had been neglected until being performed by the group. The ensemble takes account of the wide diversity of cultures that have influenced and contributed to Austrian music during the centuries of the Baroque style when the physical and political boundaries of the country were more extensive. The ensemble infuses its performances with "the joie de vivre of the South, the Slav melancholy, French formality, Spanish pomp, and the Alpine character of the German-speaking regions" (Letzbor), typical constituents of the court, and folk and dance music of that time in Austria. The Ars Antiqua Austria has toured Austria, France, Germany, Slovakia, and the Ukraine, played several festivals of Baroque music, and toured the United States in 2001. The group won a Cannes Classical Award in 2002 for its recording of Viviani's Capricci armonici and continued to release albums, including Antonio Bertali: Promithia Suavissima, Parte Seconda (2005), and Benedikt Anton Aufschnaiter: Dulcia Fidium Harmonia (2009).

Best-selling Arcana title, a reference recording of a milestone of baroque violin literature.Recorded in the beautiful acoustics of the parish church of Hallstatt (Austria), where Gunar Letzbor was born, this personal and dramatic interpretation of Biber's most popular work, usually referred to today as the Mistery or Rosary sonatas, comes back after years of absence.Gunar Letzbor makes his journey through the mysteries or events in the life of the Virgin Mary using two different violins and accompanied by no fewer than six musicians playing kaleidoscopic combinations of harpsichord, organ, lute, archlute, two bass viols and double bass a big continuo group which enhances and intensifies the changing moods of the cycle.

In the Upper Austrian Schlägl Abbey there are numerous instrumental instrumental concertos, mostly for solo violin, but often also for harpsichord. The demands on the violin soloist are enormous. There must have been a very talented violinist on site.Ars Antiqua Austria has brought some of the concertos back to life. An exciting journey into the still unknown past.

Several masses with large orchestration attest to the outstanding compositional skills of the Salzburg master Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber (1644-1704) in coping with large ensembles. As usual in Salzburg, Biber expects polychoral performances. The church music at the Salzburg cathedral drew its orientation from the performance practice in Venice. The Missa Alleluia was probably composed after 1690 and certainly before 1698, because a manuscript was made in Kremsmunster that year. The original score and sheets from Salzburg are lost. Excellent copies have been preserved at the Upper Austrian abbey at Kremsmunster: they serve as a basis for the present recording. Biber has fully exploited the possibilities of Baroque Instrumentation in the Missa Alleluia: a chorus with 2 sopranos, 2 altos, 2 tenors and 2 bass voices grants him a large number of combinations of voices and thus constant change of timbre. The strings choir also has six parts, with both violins often conducted virtuosically. A chorus with 3 trumpets and 2 cornetti is even surpassed in tonal mass by the chorus composed of 2 clarini, 4 trumpets, and timpani. This large number of trumpets emphasizes the cheerful character of the work and is very luxurious by Austrian standards.

Ars Antiqua Austria was founded in Linz in 1989 with the aim of introducing audiences to the roots of specifically Austrian baroque music played on period-instruments. The music performed at the imperial court in Vienna at this period shows the strong influence of Italy and later of French forms, while Spanish court ceremonials also shape the character of the works. The typical Austrian sound of the period also betrays the influence of the many Crownlands. The political and social boundaries of Austria in the baroque era were far wider than in the 20th century.

The Benedictine abbey at Lambach in Upper Austria was founded in 1056. Research undertaken since 2002 has revealed a treasure trove of musical works written by musicians associated with the abbey. Two such composers are featured on this disc, recorded in the historic building itself: Beniamin Ludwig Ramhaufski (c.1631-1694) and the Salzburgborn Joseph Balthasar Hochreither (1669-1731), who possibly studied with Biber.

Romanus Weichlein was an Austrian composer and organist of the mid Baroque period who published a set of 12 sonatas for strings and continuo in 1695 entitled Encaenia Musices.In some of the sonatas the strings are joined by 2 trumpets to spectacular effect and it's very clear that these admirable compositions were influenced by Heinrich Biber's Sonatae Tam Aulis Servientes of 1676.Weichlein is believed to have met Biber when in Salzburg and it's quite apparent that Biber was to have a big influence on the slightly younger composer.

Romanus Weichlein was an Austrian composer and organist of the mid Baroque period who published a set of 12 sonatas for strings and continuo in 1695 entitled Encaenia Musices.In some of the sonatas the strings are joined by 2 trumpets to spectacular effect and it's very clear that these admirable compositions were influenced by Heinrich Biber's Sonatae Tam Aulis Servientes of 1676.Weichlein is believed to have met Biber when in Salzburg and it's quite apparent that Biber was to have a big influence on the slightly younger composer.

Admittedly, the name Benedikt Anton Aufschnaiter initially sounds like that of an Austrian minor master – this composer has remained virtually unknown until now, even in specialist circles. But such is far from the case with Aufschnaiter: Gunar Letzbor, who has released an entire series of impressive excavations of Austrian sacred music during recent years with his ensemble Ars Austria Antiqua, even refers to him as the 'Catholic Bach'! Both composers – Bach and Aufschnaiter – cultivate a compositional style of masterly polyphony that must have been almost ananachronim in their day but their mastery was unsurpassed. The fact that each composer arrived at completely different results may have something to do with the difference between Catholic and Protestant culture.

In the year 1688, when the 52-year-old Georg Daniel Speer, son of a reputed peltmonger family of Breslau, had his 'Musicalisch-Türckischer Eulen-Spiegel' published in Ulm, he was an organist and assistant teacher in South Germany and already had an eventful life behind him. At the age of 18, he had set off through the Carpathian Mountains to Spisz (located in the north-east of present-day Slovakia). Throughout the following years, he worked as a mercenary for various armies, once as an army drummer, then as a bugler in the war of Hungary against the Turks. Finally, he reached Constantinople in the company of a 'high-born lord'.

It was a sensational find in many respects when Gunar Letzbor discovered the Passion by the composer and Augustinian canon Franz Joseph Aumann in the archives of St Florian's Abbey (near Linz, Austria) and other monasteries.

Following on from the highly expressive psalm settings, we now present the glorious antiphons of the master from Schärding am Inn: exquisite church music which Emperor Leopold I himself proclaimed as being definitive for the Catholic lands.