Spanish Galicia Symphony Orchestra: Online Concert Programme | Fri 10 Apr 2026

Rogelio Groba (1930-2022): Danzas meigas No. 1 – Tema do peregrino e Danza da primavera

Danzas meigas No. 1 is the opening movement of Groba’s Galicia Danzas meigas, which was first published in 2001 and can be heard as an updated version of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. It opens with a strong ritornello theme and there are two passages of birdsong, suggesting the sound of Spring (echoing Vivaldi) before returning to the opening ritornello. The themes of the pilgrim and the dance of spring represent two powerful and recurring concepts in culture, art, and literature, with meanings that intersect in the symbolism of journey, rebirth, and the cycle of life.

© Timothy Dowling

Manuel de Falla (1876-1946): Three Dances from The Three-Cornered Hat

1. Danza de los vecinos (The Neighbours’ Dance) (Seguidillas)
2. Danza del Molinero (The Miller’s Dance) (Farruca)
3. Danza final (Final Dance) (Jota)

The Three-Cornered Hat is a two-act ballet by Manuel de Falla that was commissioned by the ballet impresario Sergei Diaghilev, who had been responsible for Paris staging Stravinsky’s Firebird, Petrushka and Rite of Spring just before the First World War. De Falla’s ballet was premiered in Madrid in 1919. The music uses traditional Andalusian folk music, rather than classical ballet style and it portrays the comedic story of a miller and his wife’s encounter with a pompous and lecherous, magistrate. The Three Dances in this suite arranged by De Falla are taken from the second act of the ballet.

Neutral Spain received an invigorating influx of foreign artists during World War One. Prominent among those artists was the impresario Serge Diaghilev and his Ballets Russes, which soon became a favourite of the Spanish King. Diaghilev discussed several projects with De Falla, and they settled on an adaptation of the 19th-century writer Pedro Antonio de Alarcón’s comic novella El sombrero de tres picos (The Three-Cornered Hat). De Falla had first brought this to the stage as the pantomime El corregidor y la molinera, based on two scenes adapted by his usual collaborators, the husband-and-wife team of Gregorio Martínez Sierra and María Lejárraga. This earlier version was conducted in 1917 by De Falla’s colleague and friend, Joaquín Turina.

Alarcón’s short story contains a confusing amount of incident, but the central narrative follows the stock pantomime characters of a jealous miller, his beautiful young wife, and a lecherous magistrate (whose local authority was symbolised by his three-cornered hat). The loutish but persistent magistrate is thwarted at every turn and finally is mistakenly arrested by his own constables. He suffers the humiliating peasant justice of being tossed in a blanket, signalling a finale of general merriment.

De Falla increased the size of the orchestra for Diaghilev and eliminated some incidental music from the second part while adding a solo specifically for Léonide Massine, who choreographed the ballet and danced the part of the miller. Throughout, the rich and detailed orchestration is a tribute to his studies of the scores of Debussy and Ravel during his seven years in Paris. Pablo Picasso designed the sets and costumes, and at his request De Falla wrote an introduction and solo song to be performed before Picasso’s curtain went up. The ballet had a hugely successful premiere in London in 1919 (as Le tricorne), establishing De Falla’s international reputation.

The whole Ballet (in two acts) lasts around 38 minutes and De Falla produced a Suite from each act. The Second Suite is the more often performed of the two Suites and consists of three of the main four dances, with no adaptation needed.

In the first dance the miller’s neighbours are gathering to celebrate the Feast of St. John and dancing seguidillas based on traditional themes. The miller then has his solo dance, a dark and fiery flamenco farruca; this is the earthiest dance in the ballet. Finally, the Ballet’s main themes combine in the closing jota, leading to a simultaneous chaotic climax and jubilant celebration.

© Timothy Dowling

Joaquín Rodrigo (1901-1999): Concierto de Aranjuez

1. Allegro con spirito
2. Adagio
3. Allegro gentile

‘The fragrance of magnolias, the singing of birds, and the gushing of fountains in the gardens of Aranjuez…’

Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez is justly one of the best known of all 20th century compositions and remains his most frequently performed work, ensuring that he has effectively become a member of that band of one-work composers whose names are inextricably now linked with their babes whether wanted so or not. Thus Bizet and Carmen, Barber’s Adagio, Pachelbel’s Canon etc.

Obviously, these composers often produced many other works, but their names are tied to their greatest successes even when that success was not celebrated in their lifetime, as with Carmen. Rodrigo later expressed some frustration that he could not have bottled the secret recipe for the success of his Concierto; only his Fantasia para un gentilhombre of 1954 came anywhere close to the earlier Concierto and the two works are frequently paired together for recording purposes.

In the absence of being able to create another work of equal stature, Rodrigo contented himself with making an arrangement of the Concierto for harp (for Nicanor Zabaleta). There have since been countless further arrangements of the Concierto and in particular of its haunting central Adagio, including the transcription for brass band as performed by the Grimethorpe Colliery Band in the film Brassed Off where its nickname as the ‘Orange Juice Concerto’ was firmly established.

Joaquín Rodrigo was born on 22 November 1901 in Valencia, Spain, his life spanning the 20th century and he died on 6 July 1999. He was blind from the age of three having contracted diptheria and he used braille for notating his compositions; he carried the braille version of the concerto in a large trunk when he returned to Spain on 4 September 1939 just after the start of the Second World War.

From 1927 he studied composition with Paul Dukas (a fellow ‘one-work composer’ as a result of his Sorcerer’s Apprentice) and, after a brief return to Spain in 1933-34, he then returned to live in Paris for most of the next six years until the end of the Spanish Civil War (1936-39).

The Concierto is scored for an orchestra that would have served Haydn and Mozart 150 years beforehand, apart from the additional piccolo and cor anglais taken up by the second flautist and second oboist respectively. The orchestration echoes the neoclassical form that Rodrigo adopted, and this is clearly justified by his stated wish to summon up the sound world of Spain in earlier centuries. It is interesting to note the frequency with which his contemporaries harked back to earlier times in major compositions produced in the same period.

If the orchestration and structure of the Concierto are classical in format, the rhythmic energy is very much 20th century and in particular the continual alternations of the finale as it oscillates between 3/4 and 2/4, a challenge to anyone who tries to beat time, and yet it all sounds so natural.

Various interpretations have been put forward to explain the great central Adagio with its haunting opening tune for cor anglais. It has been described as a lament for the horrors of the bombing of Guernica by Italian and German planes in 1937, an event famously captured by Picasso’s great painting. Later Rodrigo’s daughter Cecilia suggested that a more personal tragedy might have been marked by this movement, as she spoke about the grief that her parents suffered after the miscarriage of their first child. Cecilia later described the final bars of the Adagio depicting the moment when the unborn child ascended to Heaven. This is movingly described in BBC Radio 4’s Soul Music progamme about the Concierto broadcast in July 2013.

Perhaps it is just too simplistic to expect any single factor to be behind this exceptionally beautiful movement and that, like all great art, it can be truly appreciated on many levels.

© Timothy Dowling

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937): Mother Goose

1. Pavane de la Belle au bois dormant (Pavane of Sleeping Beauty)
2. Petit Poucet (Little Tom Thumb)
3. Laideronnette, impératrice des pagodes (Little Ugly Girl, Empress of the Pagodas)
4. Les entretiens de la belle et de la bête (Conversation of Beauty and the Beast)
5. Le jardin féerique (The Fairy Garden)

The composition of Ma mère l’Oye came about as a result of the longstanding friendship between the Godebski (originally from Poland) and Ravel families; Maurice Ravel virtually adopted the Godebskis as his own family after his father’s death in 1908. He used to stay with them at their villa near Fontainebleau and he dedicated Ma mère l’Oye to Cipa Godebski’s two children Mimie and Jean who were six and seven at the time, with the intention that they give the first performance.

Ma mère l’Oye was originally a suite of five items for piano duet with a performance time of around 15 minutes; he composed the opening Sleeping Beauty Pavane in 1908, completing the other four pieces in 1910. The piano duet was clearly beyond the young children’s technical ability and so it was first performed by the 11-year-old Jeanne Leleu (who went on to compose and teach at the Paris Conservatoire and died in 1979) and Geneviève Durony in April 1910.

A year later Ravel orchestrated the original five movements and then expanded the whole piece into a 30-minute ballet by adding a prelude, a new tableau and interludes between the original scenes. He also changed the running order; the whole ballet playing straight through as the new interludes link the individual items together and thus doubles the length of the original suite. The ballet version was first performed in Paris in January 1912.

The orchestral ‘Mother Goose Suite’, however, keeps to the original five separate items as heard in the order of the original piano duet suite. Ravel included quotes from the relevant tales at the head of the three central items as below (as translated in the Durand & Cie., Paris 1911 score):

1. Pavane de la Belle au bois dormant (Pavane of Sleeping Beauty) Lent
No words here quoted by Ravel, but this gentle pavane is similar in its mood of gentle resignation to his famous Pavane pour une infant défunte.

2. Petit Poucet (Little Tom Thumb) Très modéré
‘He thought he would be able to find the path easily by means of the bread he had strewn wherever he had walked. But he was quite surprised when he was unable to find a single crumb; the birds had come and eaten them all.’ (Charles Perrault)

3. Laideronnette, impératrice des pagodes (Little Ugly Girl, Empress of the Pagodas) Mouvement de marche
‘She undressed and got into the bath. Immediately the toy mandarins and mandarinesses began to sing and to play instruments. Some had theorbos made from walnut shells; some had viols made from almond shells; for the instruments had to be of a size appropriate to their own.’ (Mme d’Aulnoy, Serpentin Vert)

The oriental character of this tale is captured by the pentatonic scale and use of appropriate percussion.

4. Les entretiens de la belle et de la bête (Conversation of Beauty and the Beast) Mouvement de valse très modéré
“When I think of your good heart, you do not seem so ugly.” “Oh, I should say so! I have a good heart, but I am a monster.” “There are many men who are more monstrous than you.” “If I were witty, I would pay you a great compliment to thank you, but I am only a beast.” …
“Beauty, would you like to be my wife?” “No, Beast!”…
“I die happy because I have the pleasure of seeing you once again.” “No, my dear Beast, you shall not die. You shall live to become my husband.”…
The Beast had disappeared, and she beheld at her feet a prince more handsome than Amor, who was thanking her for having lifted his spell. (Mme Leprince de Beaumont)

Beauty is represented by the clarinet, the Beast by growling contrabassoon.

5. Le jardin féerique (The Fairy Garden) Lent et grave
As with the opening number, there are no introductory quotes by Ravel, but this scene completes the story as the prince awakens the princess, and they all live happily ever afterwards.

Undoubtedly, Ravel began this work with the children at the forefront of his mind, and the piano duet is very much a children’s suite: the opening Pavane certainly presents no technical problems for a competent beginner. With the expansion into the full orchestral version and especially the ballet, however, the work seems to change in character so that it becomes more an adult’s reflection on childhood. Whilst children may still appreciate the ballet experience, Ravel seems to be looking back at his own childhood, possibly influenced by the death of his father shortly before he began work on The Sleeping Beauty Pavane. Thus, like Schumann’s Kinderszenen, Ma mère l’Oye becomes a reminiscence of childhood for adults, offering adults an achingly transfigured picture of lost innocence, as we journey towards the ‘happily ever after’ closure in glorious C major.

© Timothy Dowling

Joaquín Turina (1882-1949): Sinfonia Sevillana

1. Panorama
2. Por el rio Guadalquivir
3. Fiesta en San Juan de Aznalfarache

Along with Isaac Albéniz (1860-1909), Enrique Granados (1867-1916) and Manuel de Falla (1876-1946), Joaquín Turina (1882-1949) was a leading composer of the Spanish renaissance at the start of the 20th century.

He was born and brought up in Seville and most of his music reflected his local musical heritage. He studied initially in Madrid before travelling to Paris where he remained from 1905 to 1914, as a student at the Cantorum de Paris. His piano tutor was Moritz Moszkowsky and Vincent d’Indy was his composition teacher. Paris was an important cultural capital in the early years of the 20th century and a melting pot for Spanish, French and Russian music in particular. Turina was greatly influenced by Debussy and Ravel, but Albéniz, who lived in France for long periods, encouraged him to concentrate on his Spanish roots. Manuel de Falla was also based in Paris at the same time as Turina and they became good friends, encouraging one another in their Spanish compositions. Turina conducted the first version of De Falla’s El Sombrero de Tres Picos (The Three-cornered Hat) in Madrid in 1917.

Along with his compatriot, Manuel de Falla, Turina returned to Spain on the outbreak of the First World War, in which Spain remained neutral. Celebrating his native country, he composed two major works deeply rooted in his home region of Seville, The Danzas fantásticas and his Sinfonía Sevillana, the latter work being a masterful portrait of his home city, displaying it in all its rich colours and moods.

The Sinfonía sevillana (1920) is less of a symphony‚ more of a three-movement tone poem‚ dominated by a colourful dance element‚ but unified by a motif heard at the beginning on flute and oboe. Lasting around 25 minutes, it is divided into three fairly equal movements.

The opening ‘Panorama’ is soon vigorously rhythmic and captures the great views of the city. Contemplating the city from the heights is a privilege not so difficult to conquer if one rises to the most imposing viewpoints of Seville. Touching the Sevillian sky with your hands will no longer sound ridiculous when the tourist visits these spaces.

Terraces, monuments and other patrimonial spaces reveal the best views of Seville, the copper and purple sunsets and a relaxed atmosphere. The tourist will also find in these destinations some of the most romantic places in the city: Seville Cathedral, The Tower of the Perdigones, the many rooftop terraces. We can now add the spectacular Mushrooms, the large wooden structure erected earlier this century.

The central movement (which opens with a violin solo) depicts the River Guadalquivir‚ and features a gentle cor anglais solo against an undulating accompaniment. Castanets appear later to underline the Spanish background before the beguiling mood of the opening returns with a gentle cello quartet, one of the most magical moments of the Sinfonía sevillana. Turina’s central panel captures the lazy atmosphere of the great river that flows through the region. Perhaps surprisingly, he chose the cor anglais (English horn) to introduce the main theme: it is uncanny that Turina highlights this instrument, the same instrument that Sibelius chose for his Swan of Tuonela, which otherwise could be heard as the polar opposite of Turina’s sun-drenched water scene.

Rising in the mountains of Jaén province, the Guadalquivir flows in a generally westward direction for just over 400 miles, flowing through Seville and emptying into the Atlantic Ocean on the Gulf of Cádiz. The Guadalquivir, which translates as Great River, is among the longest rivers in Spain, and it has several distinctive characteristics. Its natural environment is one of the richest and most varied areas of plant and animal life in Europe. Its irrigative capacity, particularly in its wide and fertile plain, supports the rich agriculture of Andalusia.

After passing the city of Córdoba, the Guadalquivir irrigates the fruitful regions of Posadas and Lora del Río before reaching Seville. From there the river meanders slowly across a hot coastal plain, traversing the swamps of Las Marisma, before reaching its mouth at the eastern end of the Gulf of Cádiz.

San Juan de Aznalfarache is a city located in the province of Seville. Despite being a separate municipality, San Juan is in the metropolitan area of Seville, to which it lies on an opposite bank of the River Guadalquivir.

Naturally, there is a major celebration for the patronal feast of St John the Baptist, both on the eve of midsummer’s day (23rd June) and midsummer’s day itself (24th June). Turina’s final tableau of his tribute to Seville concludes with this celebration: an exhilarating succession of Spanish folksong and dances, supported by an array of colourful percussion, bringing Turina’s loving portrait to an exciting conclusion.

© Timothy Dowling

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937): Boléro

Boléro was commissioned by Ida Rubenstein (1885-1960), a dancer originally with Sergei Diaghilev’s Russian Ballet who performed Stravinsky’s major ballets in Paris before World War One. She left his troupe in 1911 and founded her own ballet company. She commissioned Ravel to compose a ballet for her to dance in 1928.

‘Madame Rubinstein’s interpretation of Boléro was set in a dimly lit Spanish café. A young woman begins to dance a languid boléro on a tabletop as the other performers gradually take notice. The dancers become increasingly obsessed by the boléro rhythm, ending in an apotheosis.’ (As quoted in the Preface to the Eulenburg study score, 1994)

Ravel was always attracted to Spanish music, and he was proud of his mother’s Spanish background in the Basque region. He said that his parents met in Madrid, perhaps indicating that he was conceived in the Spanish capital.

Ravel originally titled his piece, ‘Fandango’, but changed it to Boléro during the process of composing. He originally included castanets in the orchestra but removed them from the score before publication.

The composer had recently worked on an orchestrated version of Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, and this is generally accepted as a masterpiece in orchestration.

Ravel described La Valse (Poème chorégraphique pour orchestre, 1920) as ‘a sort of apotheosis of the Viennese waltz,’ intermingled with ‘the impression of a fantastic and fatal whirling.’ By 1919, this had been further transfigured into a nightmare scenario, the relentless 3/4 waltz rhythm giving way to 4/4 common time only in the devastating final two bars. The stark bleakness of Ravel’s final vision anticipates the relentless path to destruction taken in Boléro just eight years later.

Maurice Ravel briefly described his composing of Boléro in his autobiographical sketches:

‘In 1928, I composed a Boléro for orchestra at the request of Madame Rubinstein. It is a dance in a very moderate tempo and absolutely uniform with regard to the melody, harmony, and the rhythm, which is marked unceasingly by the snare drum. The only element of variety is provided by the orchestral crescendo.’ (An Autobiographical Sketch by Maurice Ravel, La Revue musicale, December 1938, Page 33)

A few years later, in 1932, he described the background of the composition due to his fascination with the noise of great factories:

‘I love going over factories and seeing vast machinery at work. It is awe-inspiring and great. It was a factory which inspired my Boléro. I would like it always to be played with a vast factory in the background.’ (Interview with the London Evening Standard, February 1932, page 490)

Ravel elaborated further in an interview with M. D. Calvocoressi:

‘I asked Ravel whether he had any particular remarks to offer on his Boléro, which had been made the subject of heated discussions in England as elsewhere.

‘His reply was: “Indeed, I have. I am particularly desirous that there should be no misunderstanding about this work. It constitutes an experiment in a very special and limited direction and should not be suspected of aiming at achieving anything different from, or anything more than, it actually does achieve. Before its first performance, I issued a warning to the effect that what I had written was a piece lasting seventeen minutes and consisting wholly of “orchestral tissue without music” – of one long, very gradual crescendo. There are no contrasts, and there is practically no invention except the plan and the manner of the execution.

“The themes are altogether impersonal – folk tunes of the usual Spanish-Arabian kind. And (whatever may have been said to the contrary) the orchestral writing is simple and straightforward throughout, without the slightest attempt at virtuosity. In this respect no greater contrast could be imagined than that between the Boléro and L’Enfant et les sortilèges, in which I freely resort to all manners of orchestral virtuosity.

“It is perhaps because of these peculiarities that no single composer likes the Boléro – and from their point of view they are quite right. I have carried out exactly what I intended, and it is for listeners to take it or leave it.”

‘These last sentences are most characteristic of Ravel. He may now and then pay attention to what his fellow-composers (and especially those whose music he loves) may think of his achievements; but what critics have to say – be it praise or blame – leaves him utterly cold.’

Pages 477-478 (Interview with M. D. Calvocoressi)

As indicated earlier, Boléro is, essentially, a steady crescendo, over an unchanging rhythmic accompaniment. There are two related themes, (A) and (B), each being heard nine times in the following pattern:

AABB, AABB, AABB, AABB, AB

The harmony remains completely static until just before the end when the key dramatically changes from C major to E major, before lurching back to C major for the final bars.

Whilst the two melodies are performed in changing instrumentation on each occasion, the rhythmic accompaniment is also subject to changes in instrumentation, but not as dramatically as the two melodies. One can study this in more detail, but this would probably go against Ravel’s desired effect which was, ‘above all, precisely the almost hallucinatory insistence of an immutable tempo.’

© Timothy Dowling