New Classical Tracks: Romero captures the spirit of Spain

Pepe Romero - Torroba: Guitar Concertos (Naxos)

When you hear guitarist Pepe Romero talk about his family, it's clear the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

"I think I was born to play," he says. "That is something for which I am eternally grateful, because I have enjoyed every minute of it. I love music, I love the guitar, I love my family. Music has enhanced that feeling of family. Being my father's son, my brother's brother, my son's father. And it's not only limited to guitar, because one of my deepest and greatest pleasures is to listen to my daughter Angelina playing piano. And now I have grandchildren who are in music. One is a singer, another is a ballet dancer. So the whole musical thing is there … represented in the family.

"I consider my family to be like a big tree, my father being the trunk, and each of us is a branch," Pepe adds.

Pepe's father, Celedonio Romero, was a guitarist, a composer, a poet, and Pepe's only guitar teacher. The elder Romero died in 1995. "And he was a giant in the guitar, completely magical in the way that he perceived life. He was a very inspired man," Pepe explains. "And anyone who came close to him saw the great joy and the great gift his music brought to people. He was infectious in his love for the guitar and in music and we all caught it from him. But the house was always filled with friends who were poets, who were painters, who were musicians who practiced different disciplines. I was greatly touched by very close associations with people like Torroba, Rodrigo, Gould. Great composers I think have touched me especially deeply, because there you get to see something in life become music."

One of those great composers also became one of Pepe's closest friends. It's the music of that composer, Federico Torroba, that's celebrated on Pepe's new recording. It all started when a special parcel arrived on their doorstep in California. "It was a quartet called Estampes> with a letter from Torroba who said, Segovia told me, 'Why don't you write something for The Romeros, and here it is, and I'd love for you to have a look at it.' And of course Torroba was a legend in the musical world. For us it was an amazing privilege, because having been the first guitar quartet, to my knowledge, we started out with a quartet but without repertoire. And it took a lot of transcriptions and getting composers to write for us, and to have the great Torroba write for us was tremendous.

"And after that, very soon, we went to Madrid and we met him and it was love at first sight. It was the friendship of his entire family and my family and it resulted in many pieces for solo guitar, concertos, and quartets. And from the late '60s until he passed away, Torroba was a very prolific composer and he wrote a lot for us."

This disc opens with the world premiere recording of one of those, Concierto en Flamenco. Because it requires in-depth knowledge of both flamenco and classical guitar, Pepe is uniquely qualified to perform it. "It's very much like jazz," he explains. "Flamenco is to the southern Spaniard what jazz is to the Americans. And the only parallel that I can imagine is being able to play the Rhapsody in Blue of Gershwin, and play it with the right accent and with the right feeling. Of course, people can play it but you need to really know jazz to know exactly where to put the nuances."

Torroba composed the Dialogues Between Guitar and Orchestra for another legendary guitarist, Andres Segovia. "And after Segovia had completely withdrawn from playing with orchestras, he asked Torroba to write him a guitar concerto that would symbolize their friendship. And there comes the Dialogos, the concerto that Torroba wrote in honor and in homage of their friendship. I was very lucky that both of them asked me to do the premiere recording."

The soloist on this concerto isn't Pepe, but Vicente Coves, a very gifted student. And Vicente's brother, Manuel, is the featured conductor. "I have been teaching Vicente Coves since he was 16 years old," Pepe explains. "He's an immensely gifted musician and guitarist and his brother is a fantastic and wonderful conductor who is making a brilliant career. In a way, parallel to what Torroba did, because he's becoming very sought out as an opera conductor. And these two brothers and I were sitting one day in a coffee shop in Spain talking about Torroba and thought, you know, it's really amazing that all the concertos by Torroba, who has about eight, are not recorded. Let's make a project and let's do this. And we decided to do it together."

This recording closes out with the Suite Castellana, a piece that was passed down to Pepe, and one that Pepe has now passed down to his protégé. "It was one of my father's favorite pieces in his repertoire throughout his life and I've continued to play it," Pepe says. "But this time it's beautifully presented by Vicente in this recording."

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