Artistic director, Evgueni Ratchev, reveals a personal reason for selecting Guerra-Peixe’s work as the first in a series of upcoming recordings of great Brazilian composers, called Portraits. "I have always noticed a great similarity between the work of Guerra-Peixe and the gypsy rhythms found in the Balkans," says Ratchev, who was born in Bulgaria and has lived in Brazil since 1987.

In 1991, Ratchev and Guerra-Peixe met personally at a musical event in Rio de Janeiro. Guerra-Peixe confirmed the musical resemblances that Ratchev had noticed between two very distant regions: Brazil and Balkans.

"Guerra-Peixe explained that along with the African slaves, many gypsies came to Brazil and installed themselves on the streets and in the markets, influencing national rhythms," said Ratchev, adding that the cultural confluences resulted in a rich musicality which punctuates all of Guerra-Peixe’s compositions.

Born in Petrópolis (R.J.) in 1914, Guerra-Peixe was very young when he was considered to be a violin virtuoso and an exceptional composer of music for strings. As a true artist and master, he was devoted to the erudite, folkloric, dodecaphonic and popular rhythms. He was a scholarly researcher of the intense rhythmic diversity he encountered in regions around the country.

Beginning in 1944, Guerra-Peixe studied under Hans-Joachim Kollreuterr (1915-2005), a renowned German composer and scholar who was the forerunner of contemporary music in Brazil. In this phase, Guerra-Peixe dove into the esthetic labyrinths, searching for proximity between the visual arts and his compositions. The composition "Quarteto Misto" (1945), exemplifies a musical expression similar to a Kandinski painting.

Guerra-Peixe began to give his compositions a Brazilian imprint around 1945, which conceptually approximated his work to the brush strokes of painters Portinari and Di Cavalcante. This marked his immersion into nationalism, which is reflected in this CD.

At the end of the 1940’s, his good friend Mozart Araújo insisted with Guerra-Peixe that he go to Recife to hear firsthand the rich variations in folkloric music there. He lived in Recife for three years and traveled extensively throughout the interior of Pernambuco, observing a true patchwork of sounds and rhythms which inspired his musical creativity, filling it with shades and colors. Impregnated with this resonant musical fertility, he composed pieces such as "Suite", for a quartet or string orchestra, among others.

In 1953, he moved to São Paulo, again researching local folkloric music, drawing similarities and contrasts between the music in Pernambuco and in São Paulo. In this phase he is compared to a photographer, rendering stylized expressions of musical influences in his work. He composed symphonic suites, pieces for violin, viola and piano, fusing popular elements with a refined erudite comprehension. As he absorbed the collective musical subconscious of the nation with his scholarly knowledge and extraordinary technique, Guerra-Peixe sealed his destiny as a passionate and inventive composer. A slice of this talent can be heard on this CD, with its well-polished musical tones, colors, and sceneries that crisscross geography and rhythms.