Symphonie Espagnole

Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine Xu Zhong, conductor | Alexandra Soumm, violin Maurice Ravel, Alborada del gracioso Édouard Lalo, Symphonie espagnole Claude Debussy, Ibéria Maurice Ravel…

Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine

Xu Zhong, conductor | Alexandra Soumm, violin

Maurice Ravel, Alborada del gracioso

Édouard Lalo, Symphonie espagnole

Claude Debussy, Ibéria

Maurice Ravel, Rapsodie espagnole

At the end of the Romantic era, Spain was the country that held the greatest fascination for French composers. Debussy, Lalo and Ravel all drew on the rhythms, poetry and landscapes beyond the Pyrenees to enrich their musical language and offer audiences the escape to Spanish lands they so longed for. Édouard Lalo's Symphonie espagnole, premiered in Paris a few weeks before Carmen, at the height of the Spanish craze, is today regarded as a violin concerto, so incandescent, brilliant and captivating is its solo violin part.