Domenico Scarlatti is almost exclusively associated with his 600 sonatas for keyboard. But, as with most composers of his time, he also contributed to other genres including music for instrumental ensemble and vocal music. In the early stages of his career, when he was still in Italy, he composed several operas. As there was a close connection between the opera and the chamber cantata it come as no surprise that his output includes several specimens of the latter genre, which was extremely popular throughout Europe.

Antonio Caldara is one of those composers from Italy whose career brought him to Vienna, where he composed and performed mainly oratorios. He started his career in Venice where he was born in 1670 and where he studied with Giovanni Legrenzi. Being an accomplished cellist he was probably a member of the orchestras of the opera houses in Venice. In the 1690's he published two collections of trio sonatas, which are following the example of Corelli. His first opus, published in Venice in 1693, was again published by Roger in Amsterdam in 1698, a sign of their popularity.

Bononcini was a contemporary of Handel and for the few years he stayed in London the two men were - presumably - friendly rivals, as both had operas staged in turn (together with a few other composers) at the newly formed Royal Academy of Music. Bononcini was an exponent of the Arcadian style of Italian opera, Handel the high dramatic. It is very much that pastoral, Arcadian approach that is on display in the music on this CD.

Francesco Gasparini was active in Italy during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries; he served for a time at the Venetian orphanage called the Ospedale della Pietà, where he hired the young violinist Antonio Vivaldi. His music has been mostly unheard for several centuries, and this high-quality revival will be welcomed by Baroque vocal fans and those interested in Vivaldi and his world. Included are a quartet of cantatas, two for soprano and alto, and two solo cantatas, mostly with a pair of violins and continuo. Despite the plural "sonate" promised by the disc title, there is only one sonata, placed in the middle of the program as a kind of intermission.

This attractively presented disc is not the same one recorded by Japanese-French lutenist Yasunori Imamura for the Capriccio label in 1998, even though the keys of the two lute sonatas, and the presence of a central pair of shorter works, makes the program look almost identical. Sylvius Leopold Weiss was nearly an exact contemporary of Bach's, and the notes by Beat Hänggi contend that were it not for the difficulty and obscurity of the lute, he would be nearly as well known as today. That's hard to swallow, considering the versatility of Bach's talents and the fact that Weiss occupies one small corner of the Baroque musical universe. Nevertheless, Bach is thought to have admired Weiss' playing, and may have written lute music for him. The comparison has some validity.