Reginald Smith Brindle served with the Royal Engineers in Africa and Italy during the Second World War, and later returned to Italy in 1949 to further his compositional studies with Pizzetti and Dallapiccola. The influence of Italian landscapes and culture can be found in many of Smith Brindle’s works, including an extended combination of nostalgia and melancholy in November Memories dedicated to the poet Margherita Guidacci, and an evocation of the spirit of Gesualdo in The Prince of Venosa. The sheer variety of his guitar music is further represented in the expressive Preludes and Fantasias, the technical demands of the Île-de-France Variations, and the pedagogical but intriguingly atonal Ten Simple Preludes.

This release follows on from a first volume (Naxos 8574476) that represented a Naxos debut both for composer Reginald Smith Brindle and guitarist Duilio Meucci, and was considered ‘a fine sampler of the music of one of the most important guitar composers of the 20th Century, dramatically played by a consummate artist who is deeply dedicated to his work’ in the American Record Guide. Vol.2 (8574634) was released in September 2025.

Further acclaim for the first volume in this edition includes comments in MusicWeb International: ‘Duilio Meucci’s playing is excellent throughout, and the album has the clear, resonant recorded sound that one expects from Naxos… we can also hope that the album will help encourage other instrumentalists to take up Smith Brindle’s music’.