Palace Concerts

Artists

Orquesta Nacional de España

María Toledo, flamenco singer

Josep Colom, piano

David Afkham, conductor

Programme

A Tribute to Ataúlfo Argenta

Manuel de Falla (1876-1946)

Nights in the Gardens of Spain (1909-1916)

Love, the Magician (second version, 1925)

Interlude and Dance from The Brief Life (1904-1913)

The Three-Cornered Hat (Suites no. 1 and 2. 1919-1921)

Concert commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Granada Festival

Argenta in Our Memory

The First Festival of Spanish Music and Dance (as it was called) took place in Granada between June 15 and 24, 1952. In its seventieth edition, the Festival looks to that inaugural concert to honour itself and the conductor who then appeared with the Orquesta Nacional to pay tribute to Falla. It was the Cantabrian Ataúlfo Argenta, who in his career would have a very special relationship both with Falla, of whom he was a master interpreter, as well as with the Orquesta Nacional de España (ONE) and with Granada. The ONE now comes with its chief conductor and with an exceptional pianist, Josep Colom. The music for this program is so well known in Granada that it is almost embarrassing to introduce it: Falla’s three most popular stage works (Love, the Magician, The Three-Cornered Hat, The Brief Life) and those impressionist vignettes that make up Nights in the Gardens of Spain.