Francisco Paulo Mignone (1897-1986) was very successful in his native Brazil and his reputation is comparable to that of Heitor Villa-Lobos and Camargo Guarnieri. He is one of the leading composers who defined a Brazilian identity for art music in the 20th century. However, Mignone's name is rarely heard outside Brazil. His compositions contain a microcosm of Brazilian cultural history: his earliest works show his European training, while his mature work gives voice to a new genre of Brazilian art music, rich in folk tonalities within romantic structures.

Italian guitarist Andrea Monarda made his Brilliant Classics debut with an album of Brazilian studies for guitar by Mignone and Radames Gnattali.

In fact, Mignone was initially reluctant to write for the instrument, but he produced this collection of 12 waltzes in 1970 immediately after completing the set of 12 studies. The waltzes are important pieces in the context of the genre.

All 12 are in a minor key and share a gentle melancholy common to many Latin American and American guitar pieces.

At the same time, the harmonies often venture beyond these tonal boundaries and are influenced by their time and local Brazilian folk idioms.

Andrea Monarda completes the album with several works from 1953, which were Mignone's first works for the guitar: Modinha, Choro, Repinicando and Minuetto-Fantasia. They were dedicated to Monina Távora (Adolfina Raitzin de Távora, a former pupil of Domingo Prat and Andrés Segovia), who later became the mentor of two of the most renowned duos in guitar history: Sérgio and Eduardo Abreu and Sérgio and Odair Assad.

Mignone's music is belatedly gaining some recognition outside Brazil, and rightly so: it is lively, almost effortlessly charming music with a sharp expressive style.

Alongside Heitor Villa-Lobos, Oscar Lorenzo Fernández, Radamés Gnattali and Mozart Camargo Guarnieri, Francisco Mignone (1897-1986) is one of the most important representatives of Brazilian nationalist modernism.

Francisco Mignone was successful in the popular genre before he was considered a "serious composer". He composed many valsas and maxixes under the pseudonym Chico Bororó: Their popular influence can be found in all his later musical works. Mignone's 12 valsas (waltzes) are characterized by exceptional technical brilliance and an unusual variety of styles, from folk to serial composition.

Played with rich colors and great joy by Italian guitarist Andrea Monarda, about whom Ennio Morricone said: "I am truly grateful to M° Andrea Monarda for his accurate analysis of my Quattro pezzi for guitar. I am grateful for the attention and experience of this brilliant professional who, with his sensitive interpretation, 'discovered' the composer's secret intentions."