It was a reunion 25 years in the making, but on Thursday night, The Romeros and the Tucson Symphony Orchestra performed as if the time since their last appearance together could be counted in months, not decades.
Under the baton of guest conductor and longtime Romeros family friend Jorge Mester, the guitar quartet and the orchestra made a convincing argument that they should get together more often.
Mester led the ensemble in a wonderfully balanced reading of Joaquín Rodrigo's Concierto Andaluz for four guitars. It's a piece that The Romeros commissioned in 1967 and that has become one of their signature works. In fact, in a two-week span last month, they performed it with the Real Orquestra Sinfónica de Sevilla in concerts in Vienna, Austria; Zurich, Switzerland; and the German cities of Frankfurt, Düsseldorf, Hannover and Munich.
Rodrigo, who arguably did more than anyone in the 20th century to advance the Spanish guitar as a universal instrument, took the lead from his earlier single-guitar Concierto de Aranjuez in writing the solo role for four guitars. But instead of looking at the guitar quartet as a single instrument, he parceled parts to each individually and as a group.
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What you end up with is a lush, complex, virtuosic work.
We got a chance to marvel at the ease with which the elder Romeros — brothers Pepe and Celin — performed the complex fret work that produced richly colorful Spanish accents. Not to be outdone, the next generation of Romeros — Celin's son Celino and nephew Lito — matched their mentors chord change for chord change, emphasizing Rodrigo's wonderfully folksy music.
Mester fulfilled the orchestra's role as accompanist by keeping the playing feather light — no bouts of unchecked bravado that could threaten the guitars' spotlight. The TSO's taut and impressive string section played almost whisper-soft during the second-movement virtuoso guitar turns, which flipped back and forth from solo guitar, to duos and trios, then the whole quartet.
The performance was breathtaking and deserved the standing ovation the 1,250 in Thursday's audience gave The Romeros. But if the concerto was the main course of the evening, The Romeros' encore — a jaw-dropping performance of late Romero patriarch Celedonio's Malagueña Fantasia for guitar — was the dessert. Watching Lito and Pepe perform intricate chord changes along the fret while resting their other hand on the top of the guitar was indescribable.
The Romeros anchored the first half of the TSO's Fiesta series finale. The concert's second half put the spotlight back on the orchestra with Rimsky-Korsakov's Latin-inspired Capriccio espagnol, a piece the composer reportedly said was "a brilliant composition for the orchestra."
The TSO proved the composer's point; it is a brilliant work, and with the exception of a few wobbly brass notes, the orchestra played it brilliantly.
Rimsky-Korsakov wrote several extended solo turns throughout the energetic piece. That allowed us to see violinist Carla Ecker in a solo role for the first time since assuming the job of acting concertmaster last fall. In a pair of extended solo turns, she was exuberant without being too showy and produced a crisp, melodic sound that was sublime.
The winds were also exceptional, particularly principal clarinetist Jeremy Reynolds, whom Mester singled out for applause at the end of the performance.
The TSO finished the concert and the Fiesta series fittingly with Mexican composer José Pablo Moncayo's hugely popular 1941 work "Huapango." The piece has wonderful brassy bursts, percussion jaunts rich with Spanish accents and a colorful sweetness.
The orchestra performed it with fiery energy and a deep appreciation for the piece's place of pride among Mexicans, many of whom view "Huapango" in the same patriotic plane that we place Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever."
The romeros
Tucson Symphony Orchestra in concert with The Romeros Thursday at Tucson Music Hall. Concert repeats at 2 p.m. Sunday.
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