"This set of five pieces pays homage of one of Brazil's greatest singer/songwriters, Dorival Caymmi, whose music infused the folk tradition with sambas and other emerging Brazilian forms. David Grimes opens with Preludio that, unlike the following four pieces, is a standalone piece that has no musical derivation from the works of Caymmi, As the sea often features in Caymmi's songs, this opening Preludio pays homage to it, and consists of undulating notes, often arpeggiated chords, but not always so, in various contrasting rhythms. There are plenty of places where these undulations occur amongst open strings, so creating some nice harmonic clashes along the way. The remaining pieces all begin with a scrap of the original piece by Caymmi but after that the rest of the pieces are inspired by his work, but not slavish arrangements or interpretations of them. Minha Jangada (My Fishing Raft) bobs along over a bouncy bass line and some exotic harmonies and rhythms. The lengthy E Noite (It's Night Time) is ominous and mysterious and moves around quickly over a pounding bass E and some suitably nasty sounding groups of augmented fourths. Its eight pages make for quite a difficult few minutes and great care is needed to get the most out of it. A lengthy rasgueado section is its coda. E Bonito (It's Lovely) is a warm, hauntingly beautiful piece based on Caymmi's (possibly) most famous song 0 Mar (0 sea): a suave swaying rhythm is intermingled with fragments of melody and create a heady mix of mystery and beauty; a portion in 5/4 adds a Suitably exotic few moments in the middle.The final Festa No Mar (Festival At Sea) makes a great finish to the set with its complex but engaging rhythmic bounce that pervades the whole piece. You can't relax for a second with it however because the constant changing of the quaver/semiquaver mix of rhythms means that any loss of concentration and you are in trouble. If you like your music Brazilian, and it is all written in that style, then this could well suit you. It is not easy in the slightest but any decent players will have fun giving it a go. Recommended."
Chris Dumigan (Classical Guitar Magazine)
