Igniting rhythms

Spanish rhythms, Slavic dances: Hardly any other art form allows you to travel across the entire world so quickly and so immediately and convincingly as through a people's characteristic music. Transformed and integrated, as a type or echo, as a quotation or starting point for new things, folk music was an indispensable humus across all eras, even for the greatest composers. This magnificent program makes this clear with the most prominent cast possible. Sir Antonio Pappano was music director of the Royal Opera House Covent Garden for many years and is now head of the London Symphony Orchestra. With the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and the young but already internationally celebrated Spanish violinist María Dueñas, he first exploits the enthusiasm for Spain of Édouard Lalo, who wrote a stirring four-movement violin concerto entitled “Symphonie espagnole” for the virtuoso Pablo de Sarasate. Afterwards, Furiant, Polka and other dances reign supreme in the fantastic sequence of “Slovanské tance” by Antonín Dvořák, created based on the model of Brahms’ “Hungarian Dances”: That’s a real thrill!