Albert Guinovart is one of Catalan music’s greatest assets. He is a complete musician – an excellent pianist and an inspired, prolific composer who, without foregoing high technical standards, innovative experimentation and great musical quality, produces music that speaks directly to the listener, is easily understood and is highly stimulating. Guinovart can compose musicals and children’s cantatas, soundtracks and sophisticated solo works, music for television or ambitious concertante pieces. His music is a hundred per cent contemporary – yes, it’s contemporary music! It is exciting, agreeable to listen to, of great artistic quality, yet at the same time displaying an impressive gift of communication that enables it to be appreciated by all types of audience. He shows this in some way every day, and a good example is this disc, which contains two works composed for Christmas. Un conte de Nadal (“A Christmas Carol”), based on the short story by Charles Dickens. The disc includes another fine example of Albert Guinovart’s choral output. The Suite Nadalenca (“Christmas Suite”) is made up of five traditional Catalan Christmas carols, in an arrangement for choir and orchestra which brings out all the nuances of the music and adds unexpected colours and touches of detail of great beauty.