Floodlights on the Alhambra

In Spain last week, all musical roads led to Granada. There, to the historic shadows of the old Moorish Alhambra, came a crowd of festival fans and such internationally famed performers as Guitarist Andres Segovia, Harpist Nicanor Zabaleta, Ballerina Margot Fonteyn and the Sadler's Wells Ballet. For Granada, it was the windup of a fortnight of music and dance, the second in two years, which the city fondly hopes will become an annual affair eventually rivaling Bayreuth, Salzburg and Edinburgh.

With a sound sense of drama, the festival managers arranged to have all performances held in the patios of the Alhambra. Afternoon events began in daylight and ended in evening shadows; after dark, discreetly situated floodlights illumined the cypresses and medieval arches.

Much of the music was standard festival fare--Brahms, Beethoven and Schumann --and there was only one complete evening of Spanish music, appropriately devoted to Granada's adopted composer, Manuel de Falla, and one of Spanish dance. But for visitors from other lands the festival had a real surprise: the performance of Madrid's 13-year-old National Orchestra and its conductor, Ataulfo Argenta. The son of a Santander stationmaster, Argenta, 39, made a living as a coffeehouse pianist for a while, then studied in Germany before taking over the Madrid radio orchestra in 1946. There he did so well (80 concerts in one year) that the bid to the National Orchestra followed quickly. Under his baton, the National has become a polished instrument, despite the fact that it has no hall and that its men live on a meager $30 a month, plus an allowance for a new suit of tails every two years.

Impresario Sol Hurok, who attended every performance of the festival, called Argenta & Co. "one of the finest orchestras in Europe," announced they should be brought to the U.S. "I am," he added, "going to try to give them a chance."

When it was all over, officials pronounced the festival a box-office success; ticket sales had covered expenses. Granada chambermaids began rearranging hotel bathrooms; a good many had been pressed into service as emergency bedrooms for the festival crowd.

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