Cinco danzas gitanas, Serie 1, Op. 55

Five gypsy dances for piano solo, first series, composed c. 1930. The five dances — Zambra, Danza de la seduccion, Danza ritual, Generalife, Sacro-Monte — draw on the flamenco and Gypsy musical traditions of Andalusia. Turina lived in Seville for much of his career and steeped himself in these traditions without ever crossing into ethnographic transcription: the dances are concert works shaped by his training with Vincent d'Indy in Paris, their Spanish materials filtered through a sophisticated harmonic and formal language. No. 5 Sacro-Monte, named for the Gypsy cave district of Granada, is the most celebrated of the set.