Among Juanjo Mena's accomplishments since becoming chief conductor of the BBC Philharmonic is the transformation of the band into what has to be the best Spanish orchestra in the country. Their burgeoning expertise was demonstrated with a programme centred on the master of 20th century Spanish music, Manuel de Falla, and his Andalusian contemporary Joaquín Turina. A complete rendition of Falla's ballet, the Three-Cornered Hat, began with the orchestra clapping out furious flamenco rhythms punctuated with enthusiastic shouts of "Ay!" before they had even played a note. But Falla's tone-painting is so vivid one scarcely needed Massine's choreography (or indeed Picasso's backdrops) to follow the pantomimic tale of a lecherous magistrate portrayed by a lugubriously pompous bassoon.
The impressive young Spanish mezzo Clara Mouriz sang Falla's plaintive insertions of cante jondo, the ancient Andalusian folk song that Federico García Lorca described as "like the trilling of birds, the cry of the cockerel, the natural music of woods and steams". She brought the same dark intensity to Turina's melancholic song cycle, Poema en forma de canciones; in which the flamenco impulse seemed to be filtered through the impressionistic frame of Debussy.
A disconsolate sense of exile permeated Korngold's violin concerto, conceived in Hollywood by the Austrian Jewish composer shortly after the defeat of the Nazis. A glorious anachronism, its syrupy, late-romantic language can sound unbearably poignant or unbearably twee – fortunately, Renaud Capuçon's reading tended towards the former; his lush, lyrical lines sounded like a heroically vain attempt to thrust the first half of the 20th century back into the bottle.
• What have you been to see lately? Tell us about it on Twitter using #GdnGig
