played by Gonzalo Soriano
Hommage a Antonio Machado
Rodolfo Halffter
(first broadcast performance in England)
Rodolfo Halffter is the brother of Ernesto Halffter , conductor of the Madrid Symphony Orchestra. He left Spain after the Civil War and is now living in Mexico, where he is Professor of Harmony at the National Conservatore. This suite of four pieces, which Gonzalo Soriano is playing for the first time in this country, was inspired by poems of Antonio Machado , the Spanish poet who lived from 1875 to 1939. The first piece employs the rhythm of the Spanish dance known as the Buieria; the second evokes the mountains of Galicia, and the third the countryside of Castile; the last combines the rhythms of the Buleria and the Jota. Deryck Cooke