We are nearly half way through this year's Spanish-themed Proms season now, and regular members of the audience are beginning to murmur about what they'll be driven to if they hear another castanet. The theme can get monotonous, but it is a fertile one, as even composers who had never set foot on the Iberian peninsula found all those exotic Spanish dance rhythms irresistible as a vehicle for showing how brilliantly they could write for orchestra.
Few did it better than Rimsky-Korsakov, whose Capriccio Espagnol opened this Prom by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. However much the castanets clack and the triangle jingles, there is a darker tone underpinning this score, something that came across well in the sinuous wind solos and languid violas in the earlier movements before Martyn Brabbins whipped the orchestra up into the whirling Fandango. Six years with Osmo Vanska as chief conductor have left this ensemble in good shape.
Manuel de Falla was at least Spanish, but he'd never been to Andalusia when he wrote his Nights in the Gardens of Spain, so the invention with which he evokes the hazy glades of Granada and Cordoba, surrounded by stark, sun-bleached terrain, is all the more impressive - and listen, no castanets. The piece requires a piano soloist, but it's less of a flashy, concerto-style showpiece and more an integral part of the ensemble. Pierre-Laurent Aimard, whose playing is always poised and accurate but rarely self-indulgent, was a good choice of soloist.
Rachmaninov's The Bells starts genially enough but turns very dark - unsurprisingly, as the text is based on Edgar Allan Poe's last poem. William Dazeley, the only non-Russian of the three soloists, put the words across most effectively. Elena Prokina was the radiant but slightly unfocused soprano; the tenor was Daniil Shtoda, who stands on stage as if he were waiting outside the headmaster's office, but has a firm, ringing tone that impressed even though in this hall it sounded a little small. The choir - the combined BBC Symphony Chorus and Huddersfield Choral Society - came into its own in the third movement, and its full-throated, confident exchanges were a tribute both to the strength of these ensembles and to Brabbins's communicative conducting.
