This album presents orchestral works by three French composers who saw Spain as a paradise of warmth, fragrance and colour, whether real or imagined. From the vivid evocations of Debussy’s Images and Ibert’s Escales, to the dances and landscapes that inspired Ravel’s Rapsodie espagnole, these masterpieces of Impressionism show the considerable impact Spanish culture had on French composers in the early 20th century.

This release joins an ever-growing catalogue of fascinating repertoire recorded by JoAnn Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. This team has already created a sensation with their recording of Respighi’s evocative Roman Trilogy (Naxos 8574013), an album that was considered ‘absolutely first rate’ by David Hurwitz of ClassicsToday.com, and their previous Respighi recording of Church Windows, Brazilian Impressions and Rossiniana (8557711) was a Gramophone Editor’s Choice. In other words, when it comes to this kind of evocatively sun-baked Mediterranean repertoire, this is a place to which collectors will flock, however famous the repertoire.

JoAnn Falletta comments: ‘I have personally always been drawn to 20th-century French repertoire, and the Buffalo Philharmonic has a gift for playing this music with an extraordinary sense of colour, from the most subtle and muted to a blazing brilliance that paints a breath-taking landscape of sound’.

Multiple Grammy-winning conductor JoAnn Falletta serves as music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra (BPO) and music director laureate of the Virginia Symphony Orchestra. She has guest-conducted many of the most prominent orchestras in America, Canada, Europe, Asia and South America. As music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic, Falletta became the first woman to lead a major American orchestra. Her discography includes over 135 titles, and she is a leading recording artist for Naxos. Her Grammy-winning Naxos recordings include Richard Danielpour’s The Passion of Yeshua (855988586) and John Corigliano’s Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems of Bob Dylan (8559331), both with the BPO, and Kenneth Fuchs’s Spiritualist with the London Symphony Orchestra (8559824).