“Originally, this was meant to be the second release, but it was such a contrast to what was expected, that Delos decided to put out the Haydn disc first. Actually, I began dreaming about making a folksong recording when I was a teenager. This project unites music from places with which I’ve had some kind of connection. As an example: when I knew I’d be playing in Norway, I began digging around for something Norwegian to play, until I stumbled upon the op. 66 Greig pieces, which I then performed there. After having visited the country, I was then able to take them to a deeper level. The same happened with Hungary: after having played there, I began looking deeper into Bartok’s music.

The pieces by the Greek Jannis Constantinidis, which I recorded here, follow a similar mould to the one Bartok originated in his ‘For Children’. I came across them through my teacher George Hadjinikos, who played them on piano and who often suggested that they might fit on guitar. They’re a lot easier on piano than on guitar, but musically they’re easy on neither. The Spanish pieces formed part of an album by Alicia De Larrocha, one of my favourites of her playing. It’s almost a given that Spanish music will end up sounding guitaristic.

It often happens in Classical music that we play music which we take to be folk music, but in reality isn’t. Like the case of Nazareth’s music here in Brazil, which is often mistaken for folk music. I was keen that this album should present only pure folk music.

It’s slightly ironic that the music that completed the album was from Scotland. I’d long played music from a wide variety of countries, but never from my own homeland. My parents helped me track down this repertory. It of course seldom works to simply take a folk tune and tack a harmony to it. Everything depends on the quality of the arrangement, and the context provided for the folk melody.”