This recording was my introduction to the music of Luis Humberto Salgado (1903 77). Unlike so many other Latin American composers of his generation who went abroad to study, Salgado never left his native Ecuador. Yet, from the four pieces on this programme, it’s clear he was as interested in the modernist techniques of his European (and North American) counterparts as he was in his country’s indigenous and folk music. What I find most impressive about Salgado’s work is how deftly he’s able to meld these seemingly incompatible elements.

Take the outer movements of the Woodwind Quintet (1958), for example, where the peculiarities of Ecuadorian folk music (particularly its reliance on the pentatonic scale) become the basis of the tone rows he employs. I certainly wouldn’t have guessed that these used a 12-note system if the booklet note hadn’t clued me in. The music seems deeply rooted in tonality (albeit an enriched sense of tonality), and is lyrical at its essence. Curiously, the Quintet’s central Andante sostenuto aims for a more abstract (and atonal) vision of modernism – Webern’s shadow appears to hover over much of the movement – and it’s here that I think the music overstays its welcome. I feel similarly about Selene (1969), a ‘programmatic trio’ for flute, oboe and cor anglais inspired by Apollo 11’s moon landing, which despite Salgado’s lyrical impulses comes across as overwrought and meandering.

The Cello Sonata (1962) can meander, too, although I’m quite taken with its haunting slow movement, which seems to be searching so yearningly for harmonic stability. But it’s the Viola Sonata (1973) that’s the most immediately and consistently attractive here. Salgado is at his most charming in this piquant and playfully syncopated score, and I imagine that once viola players discover it, it will start to appear on recitals and recordings.

The performances by faculty members of the University of Kansas are uniformly excellent and the recorded sound is clear and well balanced.