Gunar Letzbor and the musicians of Ars Antiqua Austria are big fans of the great 17th-century Austrian composer and violinist Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber (1744-1704). But, says, Letzbor, they dallied for more than 25 years about recording 1783 Fidicinium Sacro-Profanum. They noticed at concerts that "a positive audience reaction to our interpretations was very often missing," put the blame on themselves, and waited until they got it right. And they've certainly achieved that in this new recording of the work's 12 sonatas, scored for one or two violins, two violas, and bass, where the musical invention is fantastical and wayward, chromatically adventurous in ways that are more often associated with the 20th century than the 17th. Intoxicating stuff. challenge.nl