First-class recordings of Biber’s Mystery (Rosary) Sonatas are hardly rarities but there are fewer sets of Fidicinium sacro-profanum (Les Plaisirs du Parnasse or the Purcell Quartet’s broader survey spring to mind). The collection of 12 sonatas was printed in Nuremburg in 1683 (Gunar Letzbor’s engaging and personal essay gets the facts right but Challenge Classics inexplicably prints 1682 several times). The first half of the collection is set in five parts, for two violins, two violas and basso continuo, realised on this occasion by violone, archlute and keyboard; the second half of the collection dispenses with the second violin and confines itself to four-part polyphonic textures in which the florid double violas play a vibrant part.

Ars Antiqua Austria have laboured at Biber’s ‘sacred-profane fiddling’ for 25 years until eventually deciding that their interpretations were ready for this compelling recording. Playing from a facsimile of the original publication, the spirited allegros during Sonata II in F major offer zesty panache but never at the expense of clarity, and elsewhere there are judicious contrasts, such as compelling storminess (the agitated climax to Sonata III in D minor), battling assertiveness (the rapid dotted passage that ends Sonata V in C major), exquisite gentility (the conclusion to Sonata IV in G minor) and convivial sunniness (the Italianate opening of Sonata X in E major). Sometimes slow minor-key passages are loudly exaggerated where softer understatement might have served the music better, although the chromatic central Adagio in Sonata XII in C minor has melancholic poignancy.