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.

Gunar Letzbor and his ensemble Ars Antiqua Austria have been working with violin music from the Habsburg Empire for decades, and Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber's violin sonatas from 1681 were, as Letzbor himself says, "a milestone in his artistic development". The first recording was made in 1994 and since then Ars Antiqua Austria has regularly performed this repertoire in concerts. While Biber was still largely unknown at that time, the composer and his work are now considered by audiences to be among the greats of the Baroque era. Biber was highly acclaimed by his contemporaries as a violin virtuoso and as a composer.

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.

Amandus Ivanschiz was baptised Matthias Leopold Ivanschiz on 24 December 1727 in the Austrian city of Wiener Neustadt. As early as 1742, at the age of fifteen, Matthias decided to join the Pauline Order and took the name Amandus. On 25 December 1743 Amandus took his vows and was then sent to Maria Trost and Wiener Neustadt to study for the priesthood.

The numerous sonatas of the violinist-composer Antonio Bertali constitute a fascinating testimony as to the imperial splendour and culture at the Viennese court c. 1650. After being a violinist in the Accademia Filarmonica di Verona from 1620 to 1624, Bertali left for Vienna where one of the heights of his career was is appointment as Kapellmeister on October 1st 1649, and he would hold this position up to his death in 1669. Even though famous as a violinist in his lifetime, Antonio Bertali is not one of the bestknown composers for violin.

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.

Franz Josef Aumann (1728-1797) was a free and innovative composer. His chamber music is really worth exploring as they provide a lively and interesting listening experience.

Gunar Letzbor and his ensemble Ars Antiqua Austria are proven specialists for Austrian baroque music. During recent years, they have rediscovered, performed and recorded polychoral Festive Masses by Weichlein, Ramhaufsky and Hochreither and thus Georg Muffat's magnificent 'Missa in labore requies' is a logical choice of repertoire. This work is the only surviving church music by Georg Muffat and is overwhelming in sonic impact and profundity but also a richness of melodic invention. In its polychoral design, the work is in the tradition of Salzburg Festive Masses, reflecting in their extraordinary musical opulence, the almost boundless material wealth of the prince bishops who commissioned them.

The Habsburg Imperial Court was a melting pot of many different cultures in which the zest for living of southerners, the Slav melancholy, French formalism, Spanish courtliness and the original German-speaking Alpine cultural region intermingled. Together with his Ars Antiqua Austria ensemble, Gunar Letzbor occupied himself over a ten year period to produce this 10CD "Klang der Kulturen" box, a musical tour of the individual countries that formed the roots of and influences on the music of baroque Vienna, documenting them in live recordings, with each CD representing one country.

Gregor Werner (1695-1766) began directing the fortunes of the Esterházy court band, the Hofkapelle, on 10 May 1728. He was an industrious man. Forty Masses, three Requiems, three Te Deums, four Offertories, twelve Vespers, twelve Good Friday oratorios, approximately eighteen oratorios, a hundred and thirty-three antiphons and a multitude of instrumental pieces and minor works testify to his fertile creative spirit.

Franz Joseph Aumann was born in 1728, in the city of Traismauer and studied in Vienna. In 1753 aged only 25 he established himself at St. Florian, where he remained until his death in 1797. He composed 12 Requiems, in addition to masses, motets, litanies, offertories and oratorios. In the Requiem recorded here the listener is confronted with early Baroque opulence: the use of almost exclusively solo instrumental parts and singers bring a transparency and layered effect to the composition.

Joseph Balthasar Hochreither (1669-1731) from a family of Salzburg court musicians, was appointed briefly as organist at the Benedictine convent in Nonnberg before taking up his position for life in Lambach in 1694 where he remained until 1721. Almost all of his 21 works to have survived were composed during this period, with the exception of the festival mass on this recording dating from the year 1731. Hochreither was appointed as cathedral chapter organist in Salzburg in 1721. He died on 14 December 1731 in the city of his birth and was buried in the St Peter cemetery.

The Viennese Court Kapellmeister Johann Joseph Fux (1660-1741) is regarded in music history as the forefather of modern counterpoint, and his instructional work ""Gradus ad parnassum"" continues to influence education in this subject to the present day. But the many compositions Fux wrote for the Viennese court are largely forgotten. If at all, one still knows of sacred compositions in which Fux followed this strict, academic style. On the other hand, the composer was able to free himself from this in his opera and in his ""Componimenti sacri"", which are operatic oratorios for Holy Week (during which no operas were allowed to be performed).

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.