Dubrovnik, this real pearl on the Adriatic, was for 400 years one of the most important city republics in the Mediterranean region, significant for its mediation between the Balkans and - through close political relations - Western Europe. After the catastrophic earthquake of 1667, the city was rebuilt by the middle of the 18th century - and also expanded, so that Luka's creative period Sorkocˇevic' (1734-1789) coincided with the "second ascent" of the city. Sorkocˇevic' (Italianized: Sorgo) was the offspring of one of the most powerful patrician families, received an excellent education both in Dubrovnik and abroad and above all showed musical talent, which was deepened through composition studies. He went into the civil service and held various legal and diplomatic administrative posts at the highest level. During his time as ambassador in Vienna he met Gluck, Haydn and Mozart.

"When the ci-hitty gets into a bu-hoys sy-hist-em, he loses his a-hankerin' for the cou-huntry." So intones W.C. Fields in his Yukon-based Victorian absurdist two-reeler The Fatal Glass of Beer (1933). However, if the city you lived in was Salzburg, Austria, the idea of "a-hankerin' for the cou-huntry" was a popular one, and Salzburg's court composer Johann Michael Haydn paid tribute to it through these two little "Abbey operettas" written not for a civic theater, but for the theater at the Benedictine University in Salzburg. Haydn's singspiel Die Hochzeit auf der Alm (The Wedding on the Alpine Pasture, 1763) was intended as a mere opener to Salzburg scribbler Florian Reichssiegel's ponderous five-act Latin tragedy Pietas conjugalis in Sigismundo et Maria; however, it was the singspiel that won the day.

»Es wird eine Königin zum Tode verurteilt, die der Scharfrichter enthauptet, nach abgeschlagenem Haupte kommt eine kleine Prinzessin hervor, welche anfangs wider den Scharfrichter sich erzürnet, bald darauf aber in denselbigen sich verliebet und eine italienische Arie singt.« Was sich hier wie ein Ausschnitt aus einem der surrealen Schauspiele Eugène Ionescos anhört, ist 1776 in Salzburg entstanden und von einem Pater verfasst worden. Im Universitätstheater wurden nach alter Tradition im Fasching und zu Ende des Schuljahres von Schülern und Studenten lateinische Tragödien, die mit komischen Einlagestücken versehen waren, zum Besten gegeben.

Biber’s sole extant opera, Arminio, was composed c1692 and first performed in Salzburg. Probably intended as a chamber work, its intimate settings are matched by music of subtle delights, with lovelorn laments, comic scenes and splashes of colour. Barbara Schlick leads a fine team of singers and the period-instrument Salzburger Hofmusik provides spirited support. A real Baroque treat.

–Graham Lock