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Wnight for Spain. No, not because sports events in New Jerseybut because – almost 90 years since the beginning – their National Orchestra finally made their Proms debut under a great conductor. David Afkham to a packed Royal Albert Hall. It was the beginning, and the end of the celebration: Afkham will hand over the baton to Kent Nagano next season. They came prepared, suitcases full of Spanish notes and castanets – oh, and a football scarf of a certain team, as Afkham does during the entrance.
For more than ten years, Afkham’s band has had great success with Spanish music, which led to the Latin Grammy for best Flamenco music under Josep Pons in 2010.
We were promised that “Spanish transport” and he worked directly on the seguidilla of Ravel’s Alborada del gracioso, solo bassoon singing a mournful melody. Like De Falla’s Fantasia lusoca that followed (heard for the first time at the Proms in the orchestration of Franciso Coll of 2022), this is one of the clearest notes; in the middle and spacious, the virtuosity became something soft and relaxed.
A guitarist Rafael Aguirre (winner of an astonishing 13 first prizes at international competitions) soared to sun-drenched music in the laid-back recital of Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez. Well-mannered and focused on the outdoors, he found a kind of slow pace, his cadenzas beckoning rather than reaching. Affected by the lone singer, Afkham kept the band firmly in place. The results were vague, reduced even in the most important moments.
