Sinfoniekonzert05

‘España, por favor’ – what else could the theme be when the Spanish Maestro honoured with the Prince of Asturias Award makes his debut with the Gürzenich Orchestra. The 72-year-old Jesús López Cobos imaginatively introduces his native country from a foreign perspective in Cologne. The works of the Russian Rimsky-Korsakov and the Frenchmen Debussy and Ravel each present their own impressions of Spain. A noted musicologist said that Ravel’s Rapsodie espagnole is ‘more characteristic than the music of a native Spaniard’, and none other than composer Manuel de Falla regarded Claude Debussy’s Ibéria as the ‘epitome of Spanish music’.Also making his debut at this concert is violinist Sergey Khachatryan, born in the Armenian capital of Yerevan in 1985, who confirms that his country has a spiritual kinship with Spain: ‘an emotional but also very melancholy people.’ The virtuoso, who was awarded the Beethoven Ring in 2010, will offer evidence of this with the Violin Concerto by Armenia’s musical father figure, Aram Khachaturian.