Includes CASTELLO Three Sonatas; ANONYMOUS Sonata; SPEER Sonata a3; FRESCOBALDI Four Canzonas; BIBER Sonata a3; CESARE La Hieronyma; BERTALI Sonata a3. All are performed on sacbut, with the Australian Chamber Orchestra. The big, powerful trombone of our time is a creature of wide open spaces and large auditoriums. "Trombone" simply means "big trumpet" and the two are nowadays seen as obvious bedfellows. Not so in the 17th century! The instrument was called sackbut—a soft sounding, gentle thing whose natural partners were the viola and recorder: in 1666, the British scholar William Dugdale contrasted the 'couragious blast of deadly war' produced by trumpeters with the 'sweet harmony of violins, sackbutts, recorders and cornetts'. The sackbuts were much smaller than today's trombones, with tiny mouthpieces, tubes narrower than the ones on a modern trumpet, and bells that a man's hand might easily cover. Compared to the modern trombone, it was far easier to crack a note, but as compensation you could add inflections and ornaments with a much greater grace and range. Christian Lindberg, who has done more than anyone to establish the modern trombone as a solo instrument, bought his first sackbut30 years ago, and already then dreamed of recording a baroque program. Now the opportunity to do so has arrived.