?Guido Santorsóla (1904-1994) began his musical studies at the age of five, taught by his father, a sculptor, trumpeter and double bassist who moved from Southern Italy to São Paulo, Brazil in 1909, with the rest of the family joining him the following year. He enrolled at the São Paulo Conservatory of Music, then travelled to Naples to hone his violin technique and later London, where he studied at the Trinity College of Music under Alfred Mistowsky. His eventual return to Brazil coincided with a visit from Pietro Mascagni. At a concert in the great composer's honour Santorsóla, accompanied at the piano by Mascagni himself, performed his own compositions for violin and piano for the first time. Santórsola's final compositional period began at the age of 58, in 1962. He devised a very personal 12-tone technique free from conventional rules, and not to be confused with Schoenberg's. His language is rooted in the golden age of Florentine counterpoint through to Bach. The novel instrument used on this recording - the gran violino a 5 corde (great five-string violin) - originated from an idea by violinist Mauro Tortorelli, who commissioned the luthiers Vincenzo and Marco Corrado - based in Montegiordano, in southern Italy - to build a special instrument covering both the violin and viola registers by adding the viola's low C string to the usual four of the violin. This ingenious solution allows the performer to switch between violin and viola repertoire on the same instrument. The Sonata for violin and piano, composed in São Paulo in 1928, undoubtedly belongs to Santórsola's early compositional period. Divided into three movements - Con sofferenza, Andante espressivo, Deciso - it is based on classical sonata form but with typically post-romantic expressive, passionate themes, enriched with original South America-inspired harmonies. Saudade, a nostalgic piece for violin an