London Philharmonic Orchestra

Ottorino Respighi: Fountains of Rome
Manuel de Falla: Nights in the Gardens of Spain for piano & orchestra
Interval
Ottorino Respighi: Il Tramonto (The Sunset) for mezzo-soprano & strings
Maurice Ravel: Pavane pour une infante défunte
Maurice Ravel: Rapsodie espagnole

Enrique Mazzola brings his flair to a concert influenced by the sultry heat of Iberia.

A shimmer of Andalusian light shines over the movements of Manuel de Falla's Nights in the Gardens of Spain - an exotic slice of delicate, glistening orchestral writing that together with Ottorino Respighi's blazing picture of the city of Rome is about as evocative of a place as is possible in music.

Unsurprisingly, perhaps, it was a foreigner who seemed to get most excited by the prospect of evoking Spain in music. A foreigner, and arguably the greatest orchestrator who ever lived - Maurice Ravel - whose firecracker Rapsodie Espagnole rounds off this concert with infectious panache and bite.

London Philharmonic Orchestra
Enrique Mazzola conductor
Javier Perianes piano
Maria Luigia Borsi soprano