Radamés Gnattali (1906‑88) is apparently a familiar name to virtually all Brazilian musicians, though less so perhaps to musicians in Europe and North America. He began his professional life as a virtuoso pianist. Alongside his distinguished career as a classical composer in a variety of forms (his Second Piano Concerto was premiered by the Philadelphia Orchestra under Ormandy in April 1943, with Arnoldo Estrella as the soloist), he cultivated Brazilian popular music, leaving well-crafted, melodically and rhythmically distinguished music in the idioms of samba, chôro, bossa nova and Brazilian jazz. During his long tenure as conductor of the National Radio Orchestra in Rio de Janeiro, he became even better known as the composer of music for radio serials and through his expert arrangements and orchestrations.

Gnattali’s music has become something of a mission for the Brazilian pianist Luís Rabello, who did his advanced training in Moscow and Rotterdam and is now based in the Netherlands. Gnattali was a close friend of Rabello’s family, particularly of Luís’s uncle, the guitar virtuoso Raphael Rabello, to whom Gnattali dedicated a number of works. In 2019 Rabello and Floor Braam released a disc devoted to music for violin and piano by Gnattali and Villa-Lobos (6/19).

One of several works recorded here for the first time is the three-movement Second Piano Sonata from 1963, at a little over 15 minutes the longest work on the programme. Within its structural rigour, the variety of affects, interesting intervallic constructs and emotional coherence place it easily in the top-thirty percentile of mid-20th-century piano sonatas. Pianistically economical, the sonata expertly balances succinct musical content, carefully considered expressive gestures and a fundamental seriousness not concealed by the work’s overall exuberance. More lyrical numbers, such as the exquisite Poema fim de tarde (‘Late Afternoon Poem’) or Guriatan de coqueiro seem redolent of cocktail piano music, but of the best kind: think of a less demanding Art Tatum.

If one were to generalise, it might be to say that the strongly folk-influenced pieces, such as the chôro Manhosamente, Choro étude and Rapsódia brasileria, are not as texturally elaborate as either Granados or Albéniz. They are, however, infinitely more pianistic than Villa-Lobos, though perhaps less single-minded. One wishes there were at least three times as many of the four Exercises on Brazilian Rhythms, which Rabello captures to a fare-thee-well, not to mention the three Vaidosas or ‘Vanities’ which, in their effortless harmonic subtlety, piquant character and sophistication would grace the most discerning piano recitals. Luís Rabello is to be commended. Here’s a lot of high-quality, largely original and thoroughly idiomatic music, superbly played.