Our starting point is the famous Danse Espagnole from de Falla's La Vida Breve. It's one of those instantly recognisable pieces that you think you don't know until it starts but then immediately remember you've heard it many times before. The central figure of La Vida Breve is the gypsy girl Salud, passionately in love with the well-to-do Paco and he with her. However he's actually already engaged to a woman of his own social class. At the end of the opera, betrayed, Salud falls dead at his feet. We retrace the steps of her fiery and poetic love through the Tonadillas of Enrique Granados and the Poema en forma de canciones by Joaquín Turina.

Our legends start in Brazil with the piano intermezzo Lenda da Caboclo by Villa-Lobos. The "Caboclo-d'Água" is a supernatural being guarding the river São Francisco. Bolivia has its own legends and we share four of them with you in new arrangements from Eduardo Caba's collection of Cantares Indios. Then we are in Argentina. Alberto Ginastera was one of the most important 20th-century classical composers of the Americas. In search of cultural identity, Ginastera absorbed traditional Argentine folk elements in his own highly original musical idiom. Still in Argentina, the legendary Alfonsina y el Mar tells the tragic story of the poet Alfonsina Storni. This song by Ariel Ramírez was first made popular by Mercedes Sosa, known as "the conscience of Latin America".

Finally we are in Cuba though also in some ways back in Spain. Ernesto Lecuano was a prolific composer in the days of his fame, writing for stage and film as well as for himself as virtuoso pianist. His suite Andalucia has been recorded dozens of times, for piano, for orchestra and notably for voice with added lyrics by Placido Domingo. We end with his Malagueña (from the city of Malaga), a song as immediately recognisable as the de Falla dance which began our programme.