This new first world recording explores Antonio Caldara and his sontatas and cantatas. Antonio Caldara is chiefly known as a composer of vocal music (operas, cantatas and oratorios), and is especially remembered for his operas, many of which are settings of librettos by Zeno and Metasasio. His stylistic development as a composer, however, has been described as a movement from works that are carefully crafted, with attention given to both musical and dramatic elements (his pre-1716 works) to music that becomes increasingly less detailed and texturally thinner (post-1716), reflecting Caldara's pressing schedule in Vienna. Today, manuscripts of Caldara's music are widely dispersed across Europe but his compositions which record so valuable a picture of the late Baroque in Italy and Austria are comparatively unknown to performers and little studied by scholars. The works are performed on this release by the ensemble I Solisti Ambrosiani.
