The Mexican composer Manuel María Ponce (1882–1948) is best known for a handful of popular songs and guitar pieces, and yet he left a huge legacy of some 500 works – orchestral, chamber and piano music, art songs and folksong arrangements. These works together form the foundation of the Mexican national repertoire, and yet they are as good as unknown.

The works recorded here – some for the first time – reveal a composer with a surefooted command of the orchestra: his early impressionism is infused with echoes of Mexican indigenous culture in textures of unsuspected richness. This release is the first in a Toccata Classics series exploring Mexico’s unknown heritage of classical music.

José Miramontes Zapata graduated from the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatoire in Leningrad. He has worked as pianist, choir director and cultural manager. In 2000 he founded the Orquesta Sinfónica de San Luis Potosí and as artistic director and principal conductor of the Orchestra he has promoted many choral and orchestral actitivities with local young musicians, developing a constant cultural growth in San Luis Potosí, with more than 80 concerts per year. The San Luis Potosí Symphony Orchestra occupies an important role in the diffusion of Mexican symphonic music, with concerts in some of the major halls in México, China and Europe.