The title of this disc (“Great Guitar Concertos”) is a misnomer. Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Romancero gitano for chorus and guitar isn’t a guitar concerto; Bacarisse’s Concertino isn’t great. But the Concierto de Aranjuez is both – and all three certainly receive great performances from an equally great bunch of Australian musicians.

While I’ve not always agreed with Schaupp’s choice of repertoire (the Bacarisse being a case in point), I have never doubted her ability to make the guitar sing unlike any other Australian guitarist I know. By combining the lapidary precision of Williams with the expressiveness of Bream, Schaupp here brings us an Aranjuez fit to stand alongside the best of them, while the TSO under Benjamin Northey again show why they are one of Australia’s finest orchestras.

Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Romancero gitano sets texts from Federico García Lorca’s 1921 collection Poema del cante jondo. Colourful, picturesque and full of deep feeling, it draws on flamenco and non-flamenco traditions to animate Lorca’s often dark poetry. Schaupp, herself also a fine stage actress, is as attuned to the texts as Cantillation, who under the astute direction of Philip Chu sing with clarity and conviction.

Born in Madrid, composer, conductor and critic Salvador Bacarisse Chinoria (1898-1963) spent the last quarter-century of his life in Paris, where in 1951 he completed the four-movement Concertino for guitar and orchestra, today his most popular work. Beautifully crafted and unfailingly tuneful, it is nevertheless too derivative of 19th-century idioms for its own good. However, in the hands of Schaupp and Co it comes as close to sounding like a masterpiece as you’re likely to hear. As can often be the case with ABC Classics, the recorded sound is not as detailed as one might wish. However, their booklet-notes are always extensive and informative; such is the case here.