Turina was a gentle man who, like Segovia, placed high value on beauty and clarity of thought, and responded to 'programmatic' images; the portrayal of profound tragedy had no place in his music. Although he tried harder than his contemporaries to write in the conventional musical forms, his Sinfonía sevillana is a poetic and colourful tone poem rather than a symphony, a French-influenced depiction of aspects of the city of his birth.
Ritmos was conceived as a ballet but was never performed as such – present-day choreographers please note! The Danzas fantásticas range from the quietly poetic to the energetic, and relate to quotations from José Más's novel Laorgía. Two dances, the Aragonese jota and the Andalusian farruca, frame a dream-like evocation of elements of Andalusian melody and dance rhythm of the Basque zortziko. More specifically focused is La procesión del Rocío, a charming picture of the annual festival procession in the village of El Rocío.
Turina's skill and sensitivity in the art of orchestration shines throughout this programme, as does that of the Castilla y Léon Symphony Orchestra in extracting every good feature the music offers. The recording is clear, with a believably spacious acoustic. There are other recordings of these works, but none that brings them all together – or exceeds the quality of these performances. An outstanding issue.