The fourteenth disc by Ars Antiqua Austria and Gunar Lezbor for Challenge Classics presents world-premiere recordings of three Cantatas for countertenor and violins.

Under the rule of the enlightened Emperor Joseph I, many composers from the north of Italy took up appointments in Vienna. Antonio Bononcini was one of the most progressive composers of his time. We present here three cantatas by Bononcini from 1706. They were most probably first presented in musical academies. His amorous chamber cantatas captivate through their intimate, timeless beauty. The sensual violins engage in an entertaining competition with the longing, dreamy lines of the alto voice. The cantatas recorded here all concern themselves with the sorrows and longings of love for a distant partner.

They seem to have been conceived as a cyclic construction in which each piece exists in relationship to the others.Bononcini was a master of musical rhetoric and achieves a masterly combination of musical figures with poetic phrasing. These sensuous works were most probably performed on the occasion of noble academies. From the turn of the century, musical presentations were often designated as academies. With this new definition, academies were little by little also presented by lesser nobles and later even by the bourgeoisie.