A re-examination of the Spanish and South American repertoire has been central to Juanjo Mena's tenure as the BBC Philharmonic's chief conductor. His latest concert, a ragbag programme of 20th-century virtuoso works, marked the start of his exploration of the music of Alberto Ginastera, Argentina's best-known composer, whose 1941 ballet Estancia brought the evening to a powerhouse close.
Influenced by Bartók, Stravinsky and Copland, it's a virile, sexy depiction of a day on the Argentinian pampas, structured round a loose narrative dealing with an affair between a city gent and a cowgirl. It's rhythmic complexity and hard-to-pace momentum make it a difficult prospect for performers, but Mena seemed infinitely alert to its mix of relentless energy and sensuality, while the dexterous clarity of the playing was persuasive in the extreme.
Dexterity and energy, in fact, dominated the evening. The concert also formed part of The Mancunian Way, the orchestra's season-long examination of Manchester's role in UK music-making. Thomas Adès's These Premises Are Alarmed and John Adams's Slonimsky's Earbox were both written (originally for the Hallé) to mark the opening of the Bridgewater Hall in 1996, though Adès's hyper-complex miniature bewilders next to Adams's gloriously immediate homage to Stravinsky and the Russian musicologist Nicolas Slonimsky, whose theories impacted strongly on his work.
The first half of the programme juxtaposed Turina's 1928 ballet Ritmos with HK Gruber's percussion concerto Rough Music, with Colin Currie as soloist. Hampered by a lack of thematic distinction, Ritmos is more impressionistic and fluid than its title suggests. Gruber's concerto whirls between edgy humour and violence, but feels discursive. Currie, though, was thrillingly athletic with it – a joy to watch as well as to hear.
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