His parents, Italian immigrants to Brazil, named Radamés Gnattali after the male lead in Verdi’s Aida, and his mother began to teach him the piano at the age of six. But even though he did become a highly skilled pianist, performing Tchaikovsky’s piano concerto in B flat at Rio de Janeiro’s Teatro Municipal at the age of 23, it was as a composer (and arranger) of music of a distinctly Brazilian cast that he would make his name. Gnattali developed an individual style, which today might be called cross-over, by infusing inflexions of popular music into a classical framework, over a fluid harmonic technique. Jaunty rhythms and striking melodic lines appear in a wholly uncontrived manner: they formed his everyday working material, as an arranger of popular music for record companies and radio stations. When composing concert music Gnattali usually did so for musicians that he collaborated with in popular music, such as the guitarist Laurindo Almeida, as well as for himself. A large production includes works for a great variety of scorings, but for this disc Franz and Débora Halász have chosen to present chamber and solo works for guitar and piano, inviting the cellist Wen-Sinn Yang to join in for the composer's Sonata for guitar and cello. As reflected in some of the titles, Brazilian dance forms (samba, batuque, choro) play an important role in this music, which for a long time was disregarded by a musical establishment suspicious of its great fluency and popular appeal; music which in every bar expresses the soul of Brazil – Alma brasileira.

The Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge has selected some of the best-known choral works of Samuel Sebastian Wesley for inclusion on this disc, interspersing them with one of his organ works as well as a psalm chant by his father, Samuel Wesley

Rovshan Mamedkuliev was first prize-winner at the prestigious Guitar Foundation of America Competition in 2012, and now stands as one of the world’s most exciting young instrumentalists. He has constructed a programme with several themes. Iberian music is represented by Falla, Albéniz and Turina, and by two of the titans of guitar playing, Miguel Llobet and Francisco Tárrega. He also includes music by his Azerbaijani compatriot, Fikret Amirov, whose folkloricinfluenced music is another thematic link. The kaleidoscopic Just How Funky Are You by Andrew York and Leo Brouwer’s An Idea explore the guitar’s contemporary vitality.

Bingham’s (b. Nottingham, 1952) music for chorus and organ has been previously released on CD, but this is the 1st recording of her piano music. She used to live near Westminster Cathedral, the inspiration for the opening work, The Moon over Westminster Cathedral. Bingham spent several years as a member of the BBC Singers, which may help explain the lyricism of her music.

REVIEW:

No fewer than five first recordings feature in this very special disc. Judith Bingham is a highly imaginative composer who, on the evidence of the booklet notes of the current release, writes eloquently on her own music. The recording (made at The Venue, Leeds, October 2009) is wonderfully present.

Byron, Violent Progress is a set of 13 variations on the song She Walks in Beauty in the Night by Bingham herself. The two-minute theme is rather dark and brims with promise for variation. Jones gives it out with a sort of restrained care, as if handling a precious object. Bingham segments the score so that it is in three movements. The ruminative first variation sets out the sense of space evoked here. Bingham refers to the opening of the second movement (variation 5) as a “bright Alpine landscape” and, with its upwardly-bound phrases and glinting, glacial gestures, it is easy to hear why. A change of texture to a skeletal counterpoint marks the onset of the third movement.

Jones plays with the perfect amount of concentration for Christmas Past, Christmas Present (1989), intended as adult reminiscences of Christmases past, delicate nostalgia weighs heavily here, while Chopin is an evocation of the spirit of that composer as opposed to any sort of pastiche. Annunication II, part of a sequence of works for various instruments that address a different aspect of the annunciation, is distinctly Lisztian in its holy aura as well as its use of tremolo. Jones gives a masterly account. The end hangs beautifully in the air.

Finally, Pictured Within (1981) a portrait of six people (one of whom is fictional) within four movements. It is a walk on the dark side of Bingham’s psyche (her booklet notes are quite open about the time of the work’s composition being a difficult one for her). One can hear the concentration of language throughout.

-- Fanfare