Maria Dueñas has been creating quite a buzz. Barely 20, the Spanish violinist and BBC Radio 3 New Generation artist signed to Deutsche Grammophon last year and, what’s more, she composes. This Spanish themed concert with the BBC Symphony Orchestra marked her Proms debut and she didn’t disappoint.
Despite only one composer from Spain featuring on the programme – two if you count Ravel, an honorary Basque – the idiomatic baton of Spanish maestro Josep Pons conjured an air of authenticity. His opening gambit, the brooding Interlude and sizzling Dance from Manuel de Falla’s unfairly neglected opera La vida breve, displayed an instinct for subtle grace and building dramatic tension.
When Dueñas won first prize at the 2021 Menuhin Competition, one of her showpieces was the Symphonie espagnole by Édouard Lalo. The music may be French, but its spirit clearly is in her DNA. Unfazed by the five-movement pseudo-symphony’s potential for orchestral wallop, she gave an assured, deeply felt performance, full of character and strong on musical storytelling.
Fearless attack and nimble-fingered technique held sway as she skittered through the opening movements, while her warm contralto tone in the third complemented the music’s sultry habañera rhythms. The finale was a sun-filled joyride, Pons embracing the music’s Latin swagger and Dueñas dazzling with her agile decorations. Her encore, a serene arrangement of Fauré’s Après un reve, found her eking out a silken skein of silvery tone that held the audience in the palm of her hand.
The orchestra came into its own in a heady account of Debussy’s Ibéria. Woodwind were outstanding throughout, though some of the opening movement’s more artful string effects got a little buried. The sensuous central nocturne hinted at half-glimpsed encounters, and Pons handled the concluding fiesta with great delicacy, teasing out its Spanish cross-rhythms and picking out its colours like an impressionist painter.
Some conductors prefer a hands-off approach to Ravel’s RSI-inducing Boléro, content to let the music tick happily along. Not Pons. By putting a great deal in, he consequently got a great deal out – including some especially juicy discords – earning a well-deserved ovation.
• Available on BBC Sounds until 9 October. The Proms continue until 9 September.
