MANUEL ANGULO (b.1930): Recercada, Concerto del alba for Oboe and Orchestra (Pilar Fontalba [oboe]), Pocket Makeshift for Flute, Oboe, 2 Clarinets, Alto Saxophone, Horn, Tuba and Piano Four Hands, Dos contrastes, Contrapunto del aire for 4 Clarinets (Boehm Clarinet Quartet).

Description: A fine and respected composer and educator, Angulo appears to have followed his compositional path quietly and without pursuing public accolade; it is thus irrelevant whether his music is, or might have been at any particular time, 'fashionable'. These works from 1960 through the 1990s suggest that he settled into a mid-20th-century idiom - broadly, that of Bartók - and has remained within it. The large (half-hour) oboe concerto is largely tonal, harmonically rich, and notably lyrical in its writing for the soloist, who is also provided with three expressive cadenzas. The Ricercar develops its material through ingenious variation, and the lively Pocket Makeshift for an odd ensemble of winds and piano is a tremendously appealing divertimento. Contrapunto, for four members of the clarinet family, shares this lively, diverting character, free-flowing and contrapuntally inventive. The early Contrasts, highly chromatic and based on a motif by Frescobaldi, already display the mature composer's sense of dramatic development. Orquesta de Córdoba; José Luis Temes.