Of all the composers whom the great Andrés Segovia invited to infuse the classical guitar repertoire with fresh blood in the first half of the 20th century, the Spanish composer, conductor and impresario Federico Moreno Torroba (1891-1982) was one of the best. He was also one of the most prolific, penning almost 100 works for the instrument, including sonatas, suites, single pieces and no fewer than 10 concertos. Himself no mean champion of contemporary music for classical guitar, German guitarist Franz Halász has a special affinity for Spanish and Latin American repertoire in particular. So it’s no surprise to find him devoting his latest album to some of Torroba’s best-known works for solo guitar.

While much of this music, especially the Sonatina, Nocturno and Suite castellana, has been frequently recorded in the past, most notably by luminaries such as Julian Bream, David Russell and of course Segovia himself, Halász, as always, has something new to bring to the table. As a bonus, he performs on a 1936 Hermann Hauser Senior – the type of guitar favoured by Segovia.

The Nocturno from 1926 is arguably Torroba’s finest piece for solo guitar, recalling Falla’s Homenaje pour le tombeau de Claude Debussy in its precarious balance of severity and sensuousness. Here, Halász’s fluency of phrase and moody contrasts of timbre not only evoke the chiaroscuro passages of a Goya etching; they exemplify his approach throughout this marvellous recital. The sunnier movements of the Sonatina and the Piezas características blaze, to be sure, but Halász allows clouds to mar their ebullience, connecting them with the simple, bittersweet lyricism of the Burgalesa and the Arada from the Suite castellana. And flamenco lurks everywhere, which Torroba pays homage to in passages ringing with tremolos, Phrygian scales and rasgueado – all of which Halász imbues with the spirit, if not necessarily the letter, of the soleá and the bulería.