Jesús Villa-Rojo is one of Spain’s most impressive contemporary composers, and writes masterfully for the cello.

The taut, meditative Oración serena, with its expressive depth, is dedicated to the victims of the terrorist attacks in Madrid in 2004. From the same year comes the seven-movement suite Expresiones for solo cello, a work that charts a narrative course between conflict and aching lyricism.

Lamento is music of timbre-conscious colour, employing flamenco song forms in the subtlest ways, whilst the Cello Sonata moves through an intense emotional landscape, ranging from a chorale to deep introspection.

Cellist Asier Polo is closely identified with this music and is “as authoritative as could be” (MusicWeb International on 8570443). He has won first prizes in cello and in chamber music in the Concursos Nacionales de Juventudes Musicales in 1987 and 1989, and he subsequently studied with Maria Kliegel at the Cologne Musikhochschule.

These are première recordings by one of the composer’s leading exponents. A forward thinker, Jesús Villa-Rojo respects the past and his music is therefore experimental in places, but is also strongly rooted in traditional forms.