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17 hours ago
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What a night for Spain. No, not because of sporting happenings in New Jersey, but because – nearly 90 years since their founding – their National Orchestra finally made their Proms debut under chief conductor David Afkham to a packed Royal Albert Hall. It was a beginning, but also a celebratory end: Afkham hands over the baton to Kent Nagano next season. They came prepared, suitcases stuffed with Spanish repertoire and castanets – oh, and a certain team’s football scarf, as modelled by Afkham during the encore.
Afkham’s more than a decade with the orchestra hit its heights with Spanish repertoire, building on a legacy that earned the ensemble a Latin Grammy for best flamenco album under Josep Pons in 2010. Afkham didn’t stray far from the formula here in a programme heavy with national treasures, though noticeably lacking in Spanish contemporary music.
We were promised the “rhythms of Spain” and they got straight to work in the wriggling seguidilla of Ravel’s Alborada del gracioso, solo bassoon playing the mournful jester. Like De Falla’s Fantasia baetica which followed (heard for the first time at the Proms in Franciso Coll’s colourful 2022 orchestration), it is originally a solo piano piece; flashiness is built in. But in these comfortable accounts, mid-paced and spacious, virtuosity became something softer and more relaxed.
Guitarist Rafael Aguirre (winner of an astonishing 13 first prizes at international competitions) rode this wave of sun-warmed reverie in a lean-back account of Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez. Good-natured and folk-direct in the framing outer movements, he found another colour for the wistful slow movement, his cadenza beckoning us in rather than reaching out. Sensitive to his soloist, Afkham kept the orchestra on a tight rein. The effect was oddly muted, subdued even in key moments.
