Day 79
Falla Nights in the Garden of Spain
London Symphony Orchestra
Eduardo Mata
I don’t know much Falla. I’ve heard the most famous pieces - Ritual Fire Dance etc - but I don’t recall hearing this piece before. It is a concertante piece with a prominent piano part but not a full piano concerto. It suffers from the same problem as I mentioned in my piece on Jäel’s cello concerto. It is not enough to sustain a full concerto slot and doesn’t give opportunities for a soloist to display virtuosity but at the same time it is not really just an orchestral piece with a piano taking a role of no more importance than any other instrument. So it would not sit easily in a conventional concert programme.
None of this of course has anything to do with the underlying merits of the music. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It is full of characteristic Spanish rhythms with many suggestions of flamenco. The piano writing is virtuosic but never simply there simply for display. The quiet end is unexpected and again would not really work as the end of a concerto. But I’m glad I heard the piece.
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