Concert Review: Orquesta Sinfónica De Galicia at Royal Concert Hall

There’s reading the room and then there’s delivering a whirling, pulsating, effervescent account of Ravel’s Bolero to a Nottingham audience. Made famous to an entire generation as the soundtrack to home-town heroes Torvill and Dean’s never bettered gold medal victory at the 1984 Sarajevo Winter Olympics, the Bolero has pretty much become Nottingham’s national anthem.

But I’m beginning at the end. The Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia kicked off a packed programme with Ruada, a short piece by contemporary composer Fernando Buide, which functions as a sort of festival overture underpinned by the crepuscular atmosphere of a nocturne. The piece was an excellent showcase for the orchestra’s ability to be flamboyant while still attending to the fine details. As a piece of music, however, it tried to cram quarter of an hour’s worth of artistic ideas into a scant five minutes without any of them being fully developed, which led to some abrupt transitions and a sense, overall, of a work still in progress.

There was no fear of perplexing or disappointing the audience for the rest of the evening, though. Conductor Roberto González-Monjas booted things into high gear with a joyous romp through the three dances from Manuel de Falla’s The Three-Cornered Hat (a title that drips with the poetic in its indigenous form: El Sombrero de Tres Picos). The orchestra’s energy was contagious. González-Monjas, a man whose physicality and intense demeanour would see him typecast as a “heavy” had he pursued an acting career, demonstrated a surprisingly graceful (if still very authoritarian) podium presence. His conducting was fluid, segueing from impactful downbeats reminiscent of Giulini to a jinking, knife-like urgency that put me in mind of Rozhdestvensky. Later, stick technique went out the window and he urged the orchestra on to ever more frenzied heights with balled fists.

But again I’m getting ahead of myself. Up next was Joaquín Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez, a work known to many (albeit as the “orange juice concerto”) through the film ‘Brassed Off’. Guitarist Thibaut Garcia took centre stage and cut an appealing figure from the off. Youthful, debonair and exceptionally talented, Garcia’s playing was dignified, lyrical and marked by a lightness of touch that suited the repertoire perfectly. The audience loved him. Calls for an encore were honoured, and his banter before he played two traditional Spanish pieces revealed affability and the ease of a raconteur.

By any standards, this was a hard act to follow, even with the breathing space of a twenty minute interval. But follow it González-Monjas and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia did, launching into the second half with Ravel’s witty and expressive Ma mère l’Oye (Mother Goose), another excellent showcase for the orchestra’s talents, and again received rapturously. Next up was Joaquín Turina’s Sinfonia Sevillana, a sweeping and colourful three-movement work that doesn’t get anything like the concert hall exposure it deserves. Beautifully orchestrated and boasting some frankly gorgeous writing for solo violin, it would have been the high point of any concert - except that the fireworks had been reserved for the finale.

The Bolero is essentially an exercise in repetition, a simple but memorable tune worked through various combinations of instruments, gaining in volume and intensity until, finally, the entire orchestra are, to use a wonderful Scots phrase, gie’ing it laldy; the music almost seeming to break apart as the climax is reached. It doesn’t open itself to interpretation other than the tempo at which the conductor decides to take it. There’s the Ravel-as-speed-metal of Zubin Mehta and the Los Angeles Philharmonic at just under thirteen and a half minutes; while at the other end of the spectrum, Celibadache’s typically iconoclastic recording with the Munich Philharmonic clocks in at eighteen. Thankfully, González-Monjas pitched his take closer to Mehta’s. And Nottingham went wild for it. As orchestra and conductor received their standing ovation, they were grinning from ear to ear as if they’d had the time of their lives. To be fair, so had the audience.

The Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia played the Royal Concert Hall on Thursday 16th April 2026.