Guitarist Guitarist Pepe Romero closed Honolulu Symphony's 2001-2002 season with not one, but three standing ovations.
captivates
audience
Pepe Romero's solos
soar with eloquenceBy Ruth O. Bingham
Special to the Star-BulletinThe first followed Romero's featured solo, "Concierto de Aranjuez," by the blind Spanish composer Joaquín Rodrigo (1901-99). Romero, well and unobtrusively miked, began stiffly but soon relaxed, becoming ever more impressive in his technical facility and musical warmth.
Although he never truly meshed with the orchestra, his solos, especially the long one at the end of the second movement, soared freely with an eloquence usually found only in jazz. That famous second movement theme, with its smoky nostalgia, elicited the most passionate playing from both Romero and the orchestra.
In order to balance the soft sound of a solo guitar with the brighter, more robust sound of the orchestra, Rodrigo scored the concerto almost transparently. In other words, every note was exposed, every minute unevenness clearly audible. Wong and the symphony often sounded ill at ease with Romero, but several solos stood out: Gregory Dubay's vivid cello phrase in the first movement, Susan McGinn's echoing flute ornaments and leading scales, and especially Jason Lichtenwalter's poignant English horn melody.
Romero's first encore, "Fantasía" by his father, Celedonio Romero, also a celebrated guitarist, elicited an even more enthusiastic standing ovation. A passionate rondo-like fantasy incorporating a wide variety of guitar techniques and timbres, the piece was worth the price of admission all by itself.
Performs with the Honolulu Symphony 7:30 p.m. today at the Blaisdell Concert Hall. Tickets $15 to $55. Call 792-2000. Pepe Romero
"Fantasía" proved so successful, Romero granted yet another encore, the very moving "Recuerdos de la Alhambra" (Memories of Alhambra) by Francisco Tarrega, which brought the large audience to its feet yet again.
Maestro Samuel Wong prefaced Romero with Suite II from de Falla's "Three-Cornered Hat" ballet, last performed by the Honolulu Symphony in May of 1999. Each of the three movements is a Spanish dance: "The Neighbor's Dance," a seguidilla; "The Miller's Dance," a farruca; and the celebratory "Final Dance," a lively jota.
At first, the orchestra played carefully, relaxing only in lyric passages, which tended to cool the more passionate phrases. Somewhere in the "Final Dance," however, they lost all inhibition as Wong worked them into a fevered pitch that bordered on raucous cabaret style. Wong's "percussion fest," as he called it, included an alarming eight (count them!) sets of castanets. In the end, finesse took a back seat to rowdy fun.
For the final piece, Wong chose Dvorák's Symphony No. 7: "I think this is his greatest work; it's his deepest, most passionate, most profound work, although not his most popular."
Here, both Wong and the symphony were right at home. Secure within their characteristic sound, they reveled in Dvorák's yearning melodies amid harmonic swells, in gentle solos and in trombone/timpani climaxes.
True to his style, Wong provided a satisfyingly dramatic close to the season, a season that balanced international virtuosos with the symphony's own talent, serious literature with lighter pieces, and long-time favorites with unusual works and solo instruments.
Ruth O. Bingham reviews classical music
for the Star-Bulletin.
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