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.

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.

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'. In his 'Musicalisch-Türckischer Eulen-Spiegel', Speer sets texts from his picaresque novel 'Ungarischer oder Dacianischer Simplicissimus' in music. Speer lets his hero Lompyn travel musically through all the countries then affected by the Turkish invasion.

Carlo Ambrogio Lonati, a flamboyant character from Italy’s violin scene, was born in Milan and moved to Rome at age 25, where he became known as the “hunchback of the Queen” Christina of Sweden. His stature predestined him as a singer for roles of gnomes and dwarves in Rome’s opera scene.

The historical-instrument ensemble Ars Antiqua Austria under violinist/conductor Gunar Letzbor has specialized in neglected repertory of the eighteenth century, and few composers fit their aims better than Antonio Caldara, a Venetian trained in the grand tradition at St. Mark's cathedral. He had a distinguished career that took him to Mantua, (perhaps) to the then-Austrian court at Barcelona, to Rome, and finally to Vienna itself, where he became vice-kapellmeister under emperor Charles VI. As with other composers in this milieu, most of his production was vocal. The 12 Sinfonie a quattro recorded here are very brief specimens of the kind of sinfonia that served as a curtain raiser for an opera or oratorio, the genre from which the independent symphony ultimately evolved. In this case the sinfonias are taken from oratorios, named in the subtitles of each work. They consist of three or four movements, many of them extremely short but not excluding counterpoint and even little fugal finales.

A ubiquitous Viennese figure in the early 1700s, Francesco Conti was one of several gifted Italian Baroque composers who settled in foreign lands. If Caldara remains the most durable Italian figure in Vienna, Conti's star — on this evidence — deserves to be dusted down and given a second chance. These four cantatas from eight Cantate am istromenti probably date from the first decade of the century and feature the most delectable plethora of obbligato instruments imaginable.

Antonio Maria Bononcini (1677 - 1726) is the younger and lesser-known brother of Giovanni Bononcini (1670 - 1747). He was one of a number of Italian composers who were active at the imperial court in Vienna, and introduced the newest trends in Italian music to the Austrian capital. His brother also did belong to this group of composers, as well as Ziani and Ariosti. The chamber cantata was one of the genres these composers paid attention to as listening to cantatas was part of the entertainment at the court.