Antonio Caldara, a native of Venice, spent almost two decades at the beginning of the 18th century in the service of the Habsburg Emperor Charles VI as Vice-Kapellmeister. His musical duties also included supplying the Vienna Court Opera with a constant stream of new works.

The present programme is based on extensive research by the bass Alexandre Baldo in the Vienna National Library. In the manuscripts of Caldara's vocal works, Baldo repeatedly came across bass arias that impressed him for their virtuosity and expressiveness. Baldo discovered that Caldara had written them without exception for Christoph Praun, a highly esteemed bass player and member of the imperial court orchestra at the time. For this recording, Alexandre Baldo presents a selection of arias composed by Caldara for Praun between 1717 and 1736.