RACHMANINOV’S SYMPHONIC DANCES

Repertoire

• Ravel » Rapsodie Espagnole
• Ravel » Concerto in G major for piano and orchestra
• Rachmaninov » Symphonic Dances

Artists

Manuel Hernández Silva, conductor
Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, piano

Program

Painting with the colours of the orchestra was Ravel’s specialty, which he did from his first great symphonic work, the Rapsodie Espagnole, to his last, the Piano Concerto. These are two masterpieces that neatly encapsulate a lifetime dedicated to music.The Rapsodie Espagnole is an impressionist painting, inspired by Spanish airs, filled with the colourful rhythms of the Malagueña, Habanera and Jota dances. After this work, Ravel enjoyed one success after another, always excelling as a painter of sound, until he came to the Piano Concerto, a work composed for the 50th anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, dotted with jazz and ragtime airs, and a virtuosity so overwhelming that the composer himself refused to perform it. Rhythm and colour are the main actors in these works, as they are in the Symphonic Dances, a work steeped in the sound of the USA, where the composer had been living for some years, and in some fragments there is a nod to La Valse by Ravel.