The Spanish composer, conductor and impresario Federico Moreno Torroba (1891-1982) was hugely prolific throughout his long life, writing in a tuneful, nationalist style which drew on both folk and classical traditions. In his day he was most famous for his zarzuelas; in ours, he is most famous for his nearly 100 guitar works, most of which were written for Andrés Segovia. Of those guitar works, 10 were concertos. The present recording, the first of three volumes devoted to the guitar concertos, presents two of them, along with two suites for solo guitar.

Torroba wrote two concertos dedicated to flamenco guitarists, the first of which was the Concierto en Flamenco of 1962, written for the legendary flamenco guitarist Sabicas and which here receives its first recording. By contrast, the Diálogos entre guitarra y orquesta, written for Segovia in the 1960s but revised in 1977 and first recorded, by Pepe Romero, in 1980, is more strictly classical, if not neo-classical, but with flashes of Spanish fire.

In the first, Pepe Romero again proves himself a master of both flamenco and classical, relishing the lyricism of the ‘Allegrías de Cádiz’ as much as the rasgueado, tremolo and rapid triplets which thunder and streak across a rich orchestral backdrop, realised with equal passion by the Málaga Philharmonic Orchestra under Manuel Coves; in the second, Vicenete Coves echoes Torroba’s orchestration by clothing the somewhat wistful guitar-writing in muted washes of colour. Aires de La Mancha and the oft-recorded Suite castellana, sensitively performed by Romero and Coves respectively, make atttractive pendants.