You have to hand it to Martin Jones. Now in his 84th year, he has amassed an extraordinary discography of over 90 recordings on the Nimbus label, including the complete piano works of no fewer than 17 composers. Here, he adds another name, unfamiliar to most of us and one which, as far as I can see, has never graced these pages, one of the myriad South American composers who had enormously successful careers in their own country but who are virtually unknown on this side of the world. If you don’t know, Oscar Lorenzo Fernândez (1897-1948) was a prolific Brazilian composer, teacher and conductor called by one of his countrymen’s music critics Fernândez Brasileirissimo ‘in appreciation of his devotion to the spirit of native folklore’. His music uses both quotes of popular songs and melodies of his own written in the native vein.

With the exception of the final three, the 10 works here (25 tracks) are presented in chronological order of composition beginning with the Duas Miniaturas, Op 1, of 1918 (the second of which, ‘Presto’, leaves us in no doubt of the octogenarian pianist’s ability to scamper about the keyboard) and ending with the third of the three Suites brasileiras sobre têmas originals of 1938. The similarly early Noturno, Arabesca and five Prelúdios do crepúsculo (‘Preludes of the Twilight’) owe much to the harmonic language of the Impressionists (the fifth, ‘Fireflies’, put me in mind of Debussy’s ‘La danse de Puck’) and it is only when we come to the Three Studies in the Form of a Sonatina that we hear anything recognisably Brazilian. It is, though, the three Suites on Original Themes, with their enticing Latin American rhythms and idioms familiar from his slightly older countryman Ernesto Nazareth, that will win Fernândez most friends. Surely other pianists will follow Jones’s lead.

For my taste, the piano is recorded a little too distantly. It keeps you rather at arm’s length. While there may be no masterpieces here, there are many delightful discoveries. Volume 2? I don’t know. But it is a joy to hear Martin Jones again and I am glad to have been introduced to Senhor Fernândez.