The Sonatina del Sur (Sonatina of the South) was commissioned by Isabel Siewers’ mother as a 34th birthday present for her daughter. Its music pays token, rather than imitative, homage to South American music. Thus the sonata form first movement, whose brief development section accounts for the work’s ‘diminutive’ title, merely hints at syncopations that are as common in South America as they are in Europe.

The Canción de cuna (Cradle Song) is unusual in the fact that it is played entirel...