Henrique Oswald was born in Rio de Janeiro but spent a large part of his life in Europe. His career started at the Music Institute of Florence; he rose to become one of the great names in 19th-century Brazilian music and director of the National Institute of Music. His music retained its European character, with lyrical Italian melodies and a refined, often dreamlike style somewhere between Romanticism and Impressionism. The influences of Chopin and Schumann can be found in albums such as the Six Pièces, and from amongst Oswald’s attractively varied pieces the Le Figaro prizewinning Il neige has emerged as his most popular.