Ars Antiqua Austria & Gunar Letzbor

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.

Ars Antiqua Austria 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.

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.

In music, "ostinato" (Latin obstinatus: "obstinate") is a repeated sequence of notes. A constantly repeated bass motif is perfect for improvisation - which in turn inspired many Baroque composers to write numerous masterpieces. Gunar Letzbor has put together a splendid programme from this fund of pieces, including the well-known Ciaconnas by Bertali and Schmelzer and two ostinato-dominated sonatas by the violin virtuoso Biber, but also works by lesser-known composers such as Georg Arnold, Heinrich Döbel and Johann Josef Vilsmayr.

Several masses scored for large forces attest to the outstanding compositional skills of the Salzburg master Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber (1644-1704). For Salzburg Cathedral, Biber prepared polychoric pieces modelled on the grand performance practice in Venice. The 'Missa Alleluja' was probably composed after 1690 and certainly before 1698: the original score from Salzburg is lost but excellent copies have been preserved at the Upper Austrian abbey at Kremsmünster, which serve as a basis for the present recording.

Gunar Letzbor writes: “Franz Josef Aumann was born in the Austrian town of Traismauer in 1728 and studied music in Vienna, where he came across many important musicians of his time. It has not yet been established why in 1753 he relocated to Sankt Florian.

Romanus Weichlein was born in Linz to parents who were musicians and who gave him a good musical education. He received his first formal training at the abbey of Lambach and entered the Benedictine Order in 1671. He then went to Salzburg where he got acquainted with Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber. He returned to Lambach, and later became chaplain and musical director of the Benedictine convent of Nonnberg in Salzburg. His oeuvre consists of twelve sonatas for strings and a collection of seven mass settings.

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. Originally, the antiphon denoted a Gregorian chant that was sung by two parties opposite each other. Often a single performer was answered by a group of singers. The antiphon would later disengage from the psalm on which it was commenting. The antiphons set by Mayr represent a special form of the genre, so-called Marian antiphons, almost all of which are addressed to the Mother of God. Only In terras descendam is intended for Christmas. The antiphonal practice is still apparent in all antiphons in the alternation between singers and instrumentalists.