Sterling work by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Galicia during the current International University Courses "Music in Compostela". The concert began last Friday night with a first half devoted to the towering figure of Rodolfo Halffter, with his "festive Overture", well developed, luminous, radiating, followed by the Suite of the ballet "Don Lindo of Almeria", with seven extracts from the score by "the American Halffter" (according to Adolph Salazar), written more of half a century ago [...] and based on a text written by Jose Bergamín. The first one is a page of diverse musical colours, with a skillful orchestration that goes back to Falla, in which politonal lines are intertwined masterly; precious work which, apparently, we will never see properly performed on a theatre stage... Why?

The second half with "the God Bull", by the Navarrese Jaime Berrade, a piece of skilful musical organization, splashed on by bold harmonic strokes, in a conversation fundamentally maintained in its culminating dialogues between the percussion and the wood. It was followed by "Bis, Encore, Zugabe, Gratuity", by Tomás Marco, with a duration of about fifteen minutes; a structure in four sections of descriptive character on the concept of "encore", in its four statements in so many languages, and which the musician arranges on an intelligent counterpointing group around an arc that uses minimalism and does not sniff at as simple an equipment as the humble scale.

Such magnificent concert ended with "Sortilegis", by Xavier Montsalvatge, important page from the canon of an extraordinary musician, to whom the due tribute of admiration has perhaps not arrived early enough. Maximino Zumalave offered this excellent work to the audience in the best possible way; the forced limitation of space reduces my praises, but suffice to say that his always complex penetration of the contemporary repertoire did justice to this masterpiece, played assuredly under his batton by the excellent professors of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Galicia, an ensemble clearly on the up.

[ ANTONIO IGLESIAS ]

After the brilliant opening ceremony of this 67th edition, in the Royal Chapel of the Parador de los Reyes Católicos, presided over by the President of Galicia, Manuel Fraga Iribarne (who gave the Gold medals of "Music in Compostela" to the University and the City council to the director and to the mayor), on Tuesday we attended the first concert of those that, like public lectures, will punctuate these musical seminars devoted to the study and interpretation of Spanish music.

Maximino Zumalave, director of these courses, conducted the Real Filharmonía of Galicia in a program dedicated to three Spanish musical figures of the past: Fernando Sor, Carlos d´Ordóñez and Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga.

Excellent program, ideal for an orchestra like the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Galicia to display class and great playing throughout. This they did, lead very well by the always young baton of Maximino Zumalave, who was able to obtain with seeming effortlessness that often elusive ensemble playing, a thorny problem to solve when interpreting pieces of a Spanish past of such powerful interest and great musical demands.

[ ANTONIO IGLESIAS ]

In the educational context of the International University Courses "Music in Compostela", that are already aproaching a notable half century in existence, the subject "Symphonic contemporary music" is taught jointly by noted composer García Abril and conductor Maximino Zumalave. It is, therefore, natural that, when García Abril recently turned 70, this XLVI course turned into a sort of unnoficcial demonstration of affection and admiration towards the composer. Hence, in the second of the concerts performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Galicia, one of his perhaps best known and most beautiful pieces, "Songs of high water", for string orchestra, was included in the program, in a version the own composer considered "flawless", driven with firm and steady pulse and perfectly understood in its profound poetry, by Zumalave's baton.

The applause reached a fervid climax when Abril himself took a bow from the platform, thus rubricating the success of a great symphonic day in this handsome Auditorium, with a program offered by this magnificent orquestal - incredible that it is only seven years since its creation - so masterfully conducted by maestro Maximino Zumalave. The program also included pieces by Muñoz Molleda, Homs, Balboa and Falla, in addition to the one by García Abril.

Three days before, the same orchestra and the same conductor, also in the Santiago concert hall, had offered a program whith pages by Manuel Palau, Oscar Esplá and Ernesto Halffter, all of them truly remarkably successful versions (...) really splendid in what we could call Zumalave's trademark "deep concept" mood.

[ ANTONIO IGLESIAS ]

Thursday in the Concatedral of San Julian the Orchestra for Advanced Studies of the Royal Philarmonic Orchestra of Galicia offered a concert. The attending music lovers must congratulate themselves, for this school, directed by Maximino Zumalave, will certainly provide in the future diverse professional voices for our orchestras (...) The evolution of the young Galician conductor is well known in Ferrol. Many still remember his beginnings as a pianist in the City Hall, occassionally turned into an improvised concert hall. Surely his greatest achievement to date is his creation of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Galicia, on which he has indelibly imprinted his personal seal, his professional honesty and his enthusiasm, beyond the controversies suffered by the Galician formation. Zumalave, a respected and praised conductor here and abroad, wanted to remain faithful to his style and chose a rather uncompromising program for this presentation in Ferrol. I had not had yet the opportunity to listen to him leading this "young orchestra", but judging from this concert, with a repertoire that without a doubt constitutes the angular stone of his work, what he has achieved in such a short time is truly remarkable.

First, a faultless Faurè (with so young an interpreter), saturated with clear textures that translate with reasonable wealth of color and shade the different atmospheres drawn up by the composer in his music. Another success to applaud. Then, "Nubes Blancas", by Xan Viaño, a work of considerable importance, not sufficiently programmed as it deserves. The interpretation by the Orchestra was a delight in its modernity, its intention and its loudness full of melancholic luminosity.

[ JUAN M. CHARLAN ]

(...) The first of these concerts took place on Tuesday night, and profited from the unexpected high attendance - come the summer, local philharmonic buffs tend to disperse around our gorgeous beaches -. The concert was an oportunity to corroborate the high degree of musical excellence reached already by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Galicia, under the very expert baton of Maximino Zumalave, who so clearly understands how to extract the best from each of his musicians.

He lead some fine versions: the frothy lightness of the Overture the XIXth Century composer Ramon Carnicer made apropos of the Rossinian barber of Seville aptly contrasted by the commendable escholasticism of young Galician composer Fernando Alonso, who with a rather romantic breath wrote less than five years ago his notable "Sinfonieta in Fa".

[ ANTONIO IGLESIAS ]

With the recent death of Xavier Montsaltvage disappeared one of the most eminent figures of the Spanish musical panorama. Recognizing it thus, the Courses "Music in Compostela" rendered a tribute of admiration to him in the concert played on Wednesday night. The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Galicia presented an important all-Montsaltvage program made up of five symphonic pages (...) the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Galicia, always devoted to the most exacting performing standards, was a vehicle that responded to the exigencies of Maximino Zumalave's baton, so expert in the work of Xavier Montsalvatge, (the maestro conducted from memory the totality of the program, with the exception of "Concertino"), taking care of rich thematic and musical colors, followed attentively by this intelligent band of very competent musicians; A well deserved triumph.

[ ANTONIO IGLESIAS ]

(...) interesting concert, also performed in the Santiago Auditorium, by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Galicia, led very skilfully by Maximino Zumalave, in versions full of soul and security, in the "Sinfonietta", by Ernesto Halffter and "El Retablo de Maese Pedro", by Falla, staged by the Monicreques de Kukas, with the magnificent soloists Elena de la Merced (soprano), Francisco Vas (tenor) and José Miguel Ramón (baritone).

[ ANTONIO IGLESIAS ]

Premiere of Xavier de Paz' "O mencer dos soños". The young composer has painted this "dawn of the dreams" with the colors of the late romanticism, which the very disciplined orchestra transmitted in the dialogues between wood and strings with... technical refinement... (the concert) began with the overture of La Revoltosa, by Chapí played with incendiary fire... by orchestra and its fearless conductor.

[ STEFAN MAUS ]

L'orquestra Real Filharmonía de Galicia va deixar divendres una bona dosi de sensacions a La Farändula. El conjunt atlàntic, tot i tenir nomès quatre anys d'historia, va demostrar un potencial més que correcte, amb unes maneres molt bones de fer simfonisme. El conjunt, format per gent jove, ha aconseguit un bon empastament sonor i unes dinàmiques molt agradables. En això hi te a veure la mà del director gallec Maximino Zumalave, que ha exportat a Santiago de Compostel-la la tradició alemanya de fer música (...) El plat fort de la nit, però, arribaria amb L'ocell de foc d'Igor Stravinsky, una obra en la que es van veure els limits de maduresa del conjunt, si bé va ser una versió del tot presentable. El reforçament dels contrabaixos va ser menys quantiós del que especifica la parlitura, per la qual cosa l'inici va ser menys espectacular del previst. Amb tot, Zumalave va crear un clima intrigant que va mantenir fins a l'eclosió del tercer moviment.

[ DAVID RAMON ]

The program played on Thursday night at the Auditorium is one that demonstrates that the huge size of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Galicia is not enough reason to restrict its concerts to only the clasic and romantic repertoire (...) The 20th Century has produced plenty of works for formations as large as the Royal Philharmonic, which, by the way, makes the most of this repertoire. Also Maximino Zumalave excels in the interpretation of this last century's music, in special that by Spanish composers. The orchestra produced a very homogenous sound, and faced the demanding program under the iron control of an ever attentive baton, always ready to explore and exploit intensity and to favor shading and detail. Leaving the Mendelssohn for the end, (...) Zumalave played on lyricism in an intense version conducted from memory. Also extraordinary Stravinski's Firebird Suite, solved very well technically by the orchestra and a veritable lesson in sensitive conducting by maestro Zumalave (...). From the enigmatic introduction the baton was in turns sensual (as in the Dance), evocative and lyrical, and truly energetic in the Infernal Dance, very efficiently emphasized by the brass section. Again the intimacy in the Cradle Song, in which the baton could show its sweetest facet. The control of the intensity was felt in very tense crescendos and Zumalave was able with his orchestra to articulate musical phrases of enormous beauty.

[ ENRIQUE SACAU ]

The concert began with the Zack brothers playing Mendelssohn's Concerto for violin and piano (1823) (...) At any rate, the music was very well served by excellent Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Galicia under the baton of Maximino Zumalave, who interpreted with enormous taste the little orquestral moments the piece (offers...).

In the second part, the work of Andrés Gaos, "Granada" (dusk in the Alhambra), and again the Royal Philharmonic gave their best in another of Zumalav's tour de force, articulating phrases of enormous sensuality (...). To conclude with the program: Igor Stravinsky's Firebird Suite. Here there was surprise. A great version was expected by all of us who already know maestro Zumalave's specially remarkable expertise in the 20th century repertoire (yet still there are people who say an orchestra of this size should not play contemporary music, being best suited to the romantic repertoire!). (...) Nevertheless, the orchestra surpassed all the expectations. Impeccable the wind section and brilliant the strings, all following Zumalave, who demanded enormous dynamic efforts to control a very detailed phrasing, with flexible tempos that allowed to appreciate this very intense, evocative, lyric and energetic music in all its complexity and richness. Truly one of the best concerts of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Galicia the present season, after which Zumalave received a bunch of flowers from the subscribers of the Auditorium.

[ ENRIQUE SACAU ]

"Concert for violin and piano in re" by Mendelssohn (...) With regards to the orchestra and to its conductor, Maximino Zumalave, they magnificently offered a touching and focused version. Splendid the work of Gaos with a Zumalave that made good use of his prodigious memory, conducting without a score an even melancholy version of this splendid creative example of the Galician composer's oeuvre (...) All the orchestral sections shone with a perfect balance of sonorous personality (...) Then, a phenomenal Strawinsky, the Firebird Suite. Maximino Zumalave understood all the shining Strawinskian musical alphabet, and like the fantastic story goes, so he also "seized the golden apples of the garden". The orchestra responded flawlessly, except for a couple of minor details, and followed the orders of the conductor, who is first of all, a tru artist, a musical humanist commited to the recovery of forgotten repertoire. Gaos is a good example.

[ J. M. CHARLAN ]

I allude in the title, obviously, to the presence in the musical summer in Segovia of the great Alicia de Larrocha. If that took place in the Chamber Music Week at the Palace, now it is the turn of the equally great Joaquín Achúcarro, within the International Festival taking place at the outdoors theater in the Gardens of Leandro Silva. He appeared in the second of the concerts played during the Festival by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Galicia - this time conducted by Maximino Zumalave -, as soloist in Chopin's "Concerto number 1" (...) Maximino Zumalave accompanied Achúcarro with intelligence, and intelligent and effectiveness also seemed to me the answer of the professors to his sensible baton. That sometimes certain musical textures were a bit muddled and that some orquestral episodes were in excess dull is perhaps attributable to the weak reception of the sound from the esplanade where the chairs were placed, and to the generally less than appropriate acustic conditions of the open air auditorium. And in a similar order of things, beside the point the egalitarian dynamic level and melodic palette that was observed in all the Mendelssohn's "Scottish Symphony" forces to think about similar acoustic reasons and to applaud, nevertheless, the excellent musical line whereupon offered.

[ LEOPOLDO HONTAÑON ]

(...) the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Galicia, conducted Jose Ramón Encinar (Madrid 1954) and Maximino Zumalave (Compostela 1956) took the stage at San Julián. (...) The intimate lightness of the chopinian orchestra in the Piano Concerto shone with special enchantment as soloist Joaquín Achúcarro explained and dominated the music, playing superbly. Intention and technique belong to the order of the transcendent virtues, without which the most reasonable fidelity is never damaged. Basque artists who harmonise the cypher and the dream, the magic and the logic are frequent in our musical history. Thus, the young celloist prodigy Asier Polo took us by the hand an acted as the emotional guide for Schumann's Concerto. And other names, also young, but already skillful conductors, Encinar and Zumalave, united with their respective soloists, with which the Germanic or Polish romanticism of Schumann and Chopin renewed its eternal topicality, that is to say, its timelessness. If Zumalave, in a critical moment bringing back to light the essential romanticism, threw our spirit around the sonorous trip of the Scottish Symphony by Mendelssohn, Encinar drew up with strong characteristics his signature when giving us a new work by Tomás Marco (...)

[ ENRIQUE FRANCO ]

The multipurpose Culturgest is a modern and functional arts center in Lisbon, specially committed to contemporary artistic creation, and usually houses theater and Opera, concerts and exhibitions. In its small and pretty auditorium of 600 capacity, of somewhat dry but sufficient acoustics, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Galicia appeared the past Thursday, by invitation of the Spanish Pavilion of the Expo (...) Where the work of the orchestra shone more vividly was in an interpretation of the "Jupiter" Simphony that sounded totally full of trembling and joyful energy. The young musicians gave their best, impelled by the rigorous, clear and enthusiastic baton of Maximino Zumalave. As a grateful encore after many warm ovations, the orchestra played a soft, intimate and poetic "Intermezzo", from Goyescas, which rubricated a more than excellent performance.

[ CAESAR WoneNBURGER ]

The Royal Philharmonic appeared in Santiago last Thursday at the Auditorium of Galicia, under the baton of Maximino Zumalave, with a program of French music, by Fauré and Ravel, in the first half, and fragments of Creatures of Prometheus, Op. 43, by Beethoven, in the second. I suppose that we will have to resign ourselves to see the concert hall merely half-full in these ordinary concerts of the regular season; in any case, the empty seats were counterbalanced by the enthusiasm that causes in certain sector of the public the conducting of maestro Zumalave, an attitude (wild applause, foot-stamping, et cetera) that ends up infecting the rest of the attending fans.

[ CARLOS VILLANUEVA ]

The Orchestra (Symphonic of Tenerife), on the other hand, played a discreet role, this said as a compliment, as it let us listen to the soloist, who was brilliant; conducted on this occasion by Maximino Zumalave, it was an ideal companion, since it never wanted to enter in competition with the pianist, allowing him to take advantage of the opportunity to shine (in Chopin's Concerto). And speaking of the Orchestra, we were looking forward to listen to Mozart under the baton of Maximino Zumalave, conductor of the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, where we all know they "do" a very good Mozart. Hence my interest in he second part of this program, which included the Symphony number 39, one of the three greatest by the Salzburg genius. (...) the strings sounded compact, well defined, and the interventions of the brass and the wood were precise; Also of note the protagonism of the clarinets in this work. Maximino Zumalave, after all his years conducting the aforementioned German orchestra, has taken a special pulse to conduct Mozart; in the allegro of the first movement and mainly in the menuetto of the third, the Mozartian joviality was perfectly realised; his peculiar style in playing with melodic lines derived in a very pleasing and simultaneously authentic version of this symphony.

[ TERAN ALFONSO ]

(...) We have returned to listen to Teresa Berganza. Teresa, with his gentile presence, tends before us a shining plot of silver, on which music is reflected purely. In this occasion, the young and excellent Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Galicia contributed, under the wise baton of Maximino Zumalave, a set of Xacobeas Songs, by García Abril, commissioned by the city of Compostela. The composer displays a true catalogue of lyricisms. He does not allow himself to be taken by easy, popular turns and rates. Melody reigns supreme, emphasizing a subtle sense of harmony .

[ CARLOS GOMEZ AMAT ]

(...) the Queen Sofía Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Maximino Zumalave (with the added bonuses of pianist Guillermo González and tenor Manuel Cid) performed works by four contemporary Spanish composers. All of them related, more or less vaguely, with the figure of Falla. The Orchestra worked its way through them with the high dose of professionalism that is required to remain afloat with great musical dignity after so complex a program. In the same line of reliable work, practical and effective, was Maximino Zumalave, its applauded conductor on this occasion (...)

[ J.L.G.B. ]

Spanish conductor Maximino Zumalave and the Symphony Orchestra opened the program in the jammed Konzerthaus Odense with orquestal music from Gluck's Orfeo and Euridice. Very pleasant and full of feeling (...) (Teresa Berganza) helped by the Odense Sinfonieorchester and Maximino Zumalave, sparkled with vital and joyful Spanish music.

[ URSULA ANDKJAER ]

The presence of Maximino Zumalave at the front of the Symphony Orchestra of Galicia and the benefit of Valentin Gheorghiu as soloist, were guarantees, a priori, that the eighth concert of the ten that constitute the I Festival of Music of La Coruña, would be an evening full of sensitivity and good taste, indispensable elements of a well understood musicality. On the lectern two great works: the Piano Concerto by Edvard Grieg, and Piotr I. Chaikovsky's Symphony 4 (...). The popular Grieg concerto, rich in melodic ideas freely developed and thus used in the structuring of the work, is the spontaneous and fresh creation of a young musician, impelled from his own situation as piano concertist, and in this particular instance, inspired by a skillful piece by an admired teacher: Schumann. The facility and apparent simplicity of the musical phrases, the folkloric quotations, the moments of deep lyricism next to others of grandiloquence as befits a virtuoso, found in the assayed musicality of Gheorghiu the suitable form of the song and the affluent expansion dominated in perfect syntony with the concept and the sensitivity of Zumalave. The Orchestra was faithful to its own qualities, including the happy ensemble work surrounding, but not shadowing, the soloist. The recognition of the public, abundant, certainly, was unequivocal and Gherghiu had to offer and encore. The fourth symphony by Chaikovski occupied the second half of the concert (...) This piece needs an enormous work of previous organization and preparation. And so Zumalave showed he had done his homework, with exact exposition links, the cohesion and the deep expresivity, with great moments of beautiful emotion. Interesting version, to which the OSG contributed with its already magnificent qualities. Orchestra, soloists and conductor were forced to bow repeatedly by the incessant applause.

[ ANTÓN OF SANTIAGO ]

The compostelano Maximino Zumalave conducted the Symphonic Orchestra of Galicia in the eighth session of the I Festival of Music last Friday at the Auditorium. The program, Grieg's Piano Concerto, with Valentin Gheorghiu at the keyboard, and Tschaikowsky's 4th Symphony. A beautiful recital when such elements of excellence converge, as it happened on Friday. They were three magnificent ones: baton, orchestra and pianist. It is exciting to observe how the great ascense of Zumalave's career is confirmed. I was witness of the precise work he executed in the two compositions, in special of the symphony; sharpening execution, shades from an accurate comprehension of the work, with exact sensitivity and energy. He led an entirely receptive orchestra, which with an excellent technical proficiency made the directives faithfully its own, in harmonic conjunction with the baton. A great beauty pervaded all the concert. In the Fourth, with its fatalistic pain and its light grace first, with fiery metals; the sweetness of the "Canzona", sung by oboe, chelos, fagot and strings; the "pizzicato" of the strings and the wood in the "Scherzo"; the ferocious finale based on the popular air "the birch" (...) conductor, pianist, soloists and all the orchestra received a deserved and insistent tribute of the public.

[ RAMIRO CARTELLE ]

It is exciting to see how that great conductor who is Maximino Zumalave pronounces himself every time with more fullness and rotundity. In each new concert he patently reveals new facets of his radical musicality, fleshed out through his own "I", but wisely and affectively spilled towards the whole assumption of the soul and the "body" of interpreted works, and towards the whole communication of that message, registered in the score, to the multiple orquestal instruments and to the public. New confirmation was last Thursday at the Auditorium, with the Symphonic Orchestra of Galicia and maestro Guillermo González at the piano, doing nothing less than Brahms' Second Piano Concerto, Dvorak's 7th Symphony n and "Songs of high water", García Abril. The Symphony was played with aching desire, with complete passion. That veritable musical cathedral for the piano by Brahms was an authentic dramatic representation with two protagonists-antagonists: piano and orchestra. González, superb interpreter and professor, made shine its beautiful part with fearless abandon, dominion of sonoritiesb and powers, in the liquid dynamics and the phrasing. The orchestra responded, to baton and soloist, with "tuttis" and attacks of rotund evenness, of exact and vibrant planning of timbres, densities, times and dynamics, and with interventions like the precious cello solo in the "andante". Equal response gave the orchestra in the skillful "Seventh" by Dvorak, with the dramatic push of the "allegro", the unanimous and romantic "parlando", the nervous and delicate dance of the "scherzo" and the finely homogeneous and well developed "final allegro" (...)

[ RAMIRO CARTELLE ]

The Galician maestro Maximino Zumalave conducted, for the second time in this season, the Symphonic Orchestra of Galicia in a concert that included the nocturnal Yukel, by the composer Manuel Balboa. Zumalave, in a concert that also included Raschmaninov's Second Piano Concerto and Brahms' Fourth Symphony, achieved a new success, (...) and the public awarded him with long ovaciones, forcing him to take five bows after each one of works. Manuel Balboa, born in A Corunna in 1958, is considered to be one of Spain's most promising young composers (...) the score of Yukel was, however, a commission of the University of Santiago and had been premiered the 23 of March 1992 by the Xove Orquestra of Galicia. Zumalave's version was very beautiful, managing to extract the best from his ensemble of young musicians from fifteen countries that today are grouped in the orchestra. Zumalave offered, next, a shining version of the Rachmaninov, in which he counted on the German soloist Nikolaus Lahusen, still a young man, but who demonstrated great mastery, as much in his technique as in his expressive elegance and sensitivity. The orchestra responded perfectly to the baton of the maestro, who managed, with firmness and simultaneously with flexibility, to underline all the romanticism of the work whilst allowing the virtuosity of the soloist to prevail. The conductor still surpassed himself in the second half, devoted to Brahms' Fourth Symphony, possibly the most classic of all written by the German composer, but also the brilliant. And brilliantly it was played through its four movements, in which the baton of Zumalave dominated totally the musicians to the point that he obtained one of the best sounds expressed by this orchestra to date, and from which we can augur him a great future (...).

[ ALBINO MALLO ]

(...) Zumalave's gambit was triple: a premiere, the performance by a soloist of the own Spanish National Orchestra, and a great symphony of romantic connection. "Pasodoble" is a commission by the OCNE to Jesús Villa Rojo, distinguished instrumentalist and composer (...) it is a valid work, of a good musician for whom there was a good deal of applause, received by him on the stage, with the orchestra and the maestro, (...) Maximino Zumalave's manner, natural, precise and effective (...), later offered a great, beautiful and long version of the monumental "Second symphony" by Rachmaninoff, romantic, lyric and full of mighty melodic lines (...) great Success.

[ ANTONIO FERNANDEZ-CID ]

(...) Zumalave is conductor of great experience and steady hand. He offered a remarkable version of Rachmaninov's Second.. First there had been the echoes of the popular Spanishness. Then, with the soloist, those of the late romanticism. Finally, Rachmaninov brought us echoes of a very delayed romantic soul, with those melodic progressions in which the listener always suspects what is going to happen in the following compasses. The symphony is a little heavy in color and also heavy in extension. Lead on the wing, but flies when is led like on this occasion.

[ CARLOS GOMEZ AMAT ]

A clear conclussion: This concert by the National provided us with a much needed joy: To be able to state irrevocably that in our country there are indeed some good conductors. Pertaining to a new generation, Zumalave made authentic music. I will begin with the second half. He offered us an excellent version of a piece which is not exactly in the repertoire but, that in its content has much to offer. Its solid composer, so frequently vilified by some "exquisite conoisseurs", is Sergei Rachmaninov (...) I was enchanted by this conductor who with his authority and knowledge and mainly with sensitivity, knew to tell such a romantic and specious tale as the Second Symphony. The phrasing, the rich harmonic projection that articulates melodies flowing throughout the work, the instrumental plots so correctly planned, and the timbric gentleness, all those virtues that characterize the Russian composer were laid out exquisitely to the delight of the attending public, pure artistic reality in this version of the young maestro. In his hands, the National sounded with the quality of a good symphony orchestra (...) Shining the performance of a soloist of the National Orchestra, Enrique Ferrando. Pity that such an applauded effort has had to be for a work of so little artistic interest as is it the Concertino by the 19th century German violinist Ferdinand David, in which also in this occasion the quality of conductor Zumalave could be appreciated, by the way he excelled in the difficult office of accompanist.

[ RAFAEL BENEDITO ]

With a not at all conformist program Maximino Zumalave debuted conducting the National Orchestra. He is a sensible maestro of great responsibility, which was left patent in his interpretations of Villa Rojo, David and Rachmaninov, that granted him a rotund success (...) Ended the program the Second symphony by Rachmaninov. Zumalave did an excellent version, the most detailed and clear of the evening.

[ ENRIQUE FRANCO ]

conductor with perspective, Maximino Zumalave knows the architecture of sound very well, (of the Fourth Symphony by Brahms) which he interprets with elegance and gentleness but that also constructs with vitality and a real and enthusiastic sense of the rythm.

[ FIORELA GEORGETA TICA ]

... Unter dem spanischen dirigenten Maximino Zumalave lieferte DAS Sinfonieorchester eine weit feinere vorbereitete Begleitung, als man sonst hört bei solch grossen Geaangssolisten Konzerte Under Spanish conductor Maximino Zumalave the Symphony orchestra much more made a support finely prepared of which it is listened to habitually with the great singers.

[ JOHN CHRISTIANSEN ]

A meticulous Berlioz, a disordered Schumann and an overwhelming Tchaikovsky supported to Maximino Zurnalave in his first appearance as principal guest conductor of the Symphony Orchestra of Galicia. With one clean, meticulous and accurate interpretation of the "Roman Carnival" by Berlioz, the conductor heated the atmosphere in a session that started off promisingly. The sharp lancet of the maestro shelled meticulously all and each one of the compasses of the work putting still on a perfect sonorous building (...) But the true music on Thursday in A Corunna was written by Tchaikovsky and it was translated and explained by the galician conductor. An orchestra truly galvanized before the presence of Zumalave transformed the concert into a real experience. The Galician musician is the owner of a totally comprehensible and diaphanous baton technique, ideal for the musicians. With it he skillfully dictated one of the best lessons than are possible to be taught on the summit of the Russian symphonic music. The lesson was pronounced in a single outline, without fissures, with tremendous horrifying progressions and climax in the first movement, true vals and rythmical power in the second and third, with a tense and concentrated end in the Lamentoso with which Tchaikovsky dismisses its symphony, in spite of wich a good part of the public had previously threatened to conclude the symphony with applause after the vibrant third movement.

[ JAVIER VIZOSO ]