Leader, Harold Fairhurst
Conductor, Richard Austin
Solo pianoforte, Harriet Cohen from the Pavilion, Bournemouth
Falla's 'Nights in the Gardens of Spain' was completed in 1916 and first heard in England in 1921. According to the composer, ' the themes employed are based on the rhythms, modes, cadences, and ornamental figures which distinguished the popular music of Andalucia, although they are rarely used in their original forms ; and the orchestration frequently employs, and employs in a tonventional manner, certain effects peculiar to the popular instruments Tised in those parts of Spain. The music has no pretensions to being descriptive: it is merely expressive. But something more than the sounds of festivals and dances has inspired these " evocations in sound ", for melancholy and mystery have their part also '.