The title of this series of solo works has nothing to do with South America in the sense that one might expect. Rather, it refers to the Sul América insurance company, which sponsored the Young Musicians of Brazil Competition in Rio de Janeiro, for which Santoro had been asked to compose the repertoire in 1983. There are 15 of them, and one might initially imagine them to be some kind of Brazilian equivalent of Berio’s Sequenzas, but while they can certainly be suitably virtuoso, Santoro is much more interested in them as a means of refracting his own stylistic concerns and the changes that these had undergone over the years.

As Gustavo de Sá observes in his booklet notes, the music functions on the basis of ‘multiple fleeting tonal centres, embedded in a more chromatic discourse, with incomplete twelve-note series enabling us to perceive successive moments of a broader, more flexible tonal discourse’. For the listener, this translates into typically variegated Santoro textures, moving rapidly and unpredictably from one emotional state to another but always with a strong sense of narrative. They also fall into groups, the fantasias for flute and clarinet employing the same musical material, as do those for oboe and bassoon, and for violin, viola and cello. Also included on this recording are the four tiny Transitions, for oboe, clarinet and bassoon, which serve to link the fantasias for those instruments and remind me of nothing so much as Stravinskian chorales, cleansing the ears, so to speak, in between moments of great activity.

Two works really stand out: the Fantasia for horn, which is wonderfully and resonantly idiomatic, and that for piano, which is a meditative work framed by furious toccata-like outbursts. Also impressive is the Solo Violin Sonata, though its very short duration is somewhat frustrating. Performances throughout are faultless; it would be truly wonderful if these works could become more widely known as a consequence of such fine recordings.