A Musical Journey
John Henken
The history of guitar ensembles before the 20th century is largely a social history of music for home entertainment. Among the guitar’s ancestors, there is a smattering of music for two lutes, or vihuelas, or other related instruments. When the six-string “classical” guitar came to the fore in the Romantic era, masters such as Fernando Sor—himself a touring professional—created numerous guitar duets for the amateur market, and by the first half of the 20th century, the guitar duo had become a reasonably familiar, if hardly common, medium for art music and professional performance.

But when the Romeros (then Celedonio and his sons Celin, Pepe, and Angel) first took the stage in 1960, there was no precedent for a professional guitar quartet and no repertory. That guitar quartets now flourish everywhere, with catalogs full of music, original as well as arranged, is the fullest tribute possible to the still-thriving career of this pioneering ensemble.

The Romeros found a productive lode of potential repertory in instrumental music from the zarzuela, the Spanish music theater genre. Like opera, zarzuela takes many forms. La Verbena de la Paloma is one of the glories of the género chico, the little genre of one-act shows that played hourly in theaters throughout Madrid in the last decades of the 19th century. Composed by Tomás Bretón on a libretto by Ricardo de la Vega, La Verbena de la Paloma is a character-driven, slice-of-life comedy that takes place on the night of the Virgin of Paloma, a very popular summer festival (verbena) in Madrid. The zesty Prelude(composed 1894; 4 minutes) is a medley of the zarzuela’s main tunes, framed by its famous habanera, first as a brilliant opening and then ending in slow seduction.

Gaspar Sanz was the foremost Spanish guitar master of the 17th century, in terms of his lasting influence and concert presence, if nothing else. He published an instruction manual and music collection in 1674, which went through another seven editions in the next 23 years. His avowed intention was to focus on Spanish popular music, and from his book comes this Suite española (13 minutes), a group of short regional dances – most under a minute long—and other little pieces imitating the sounds of trumpets and battles. These have been gathered and arranged for the modern guitar—the Baroque guitar was a much smaller instrument, mostly double-strung in five courses—under this title by a number of musicians. (Celedonio and Angel Romero have both recorded their versions.)

One of the composers much inspired by Sanz was Joaquín Rodrigo, who based his popular Fantasia para un gentilhombre, for guitar and orchestra, on tunes from Sanz’ book. Rodrigo was also a composer closely associated with the Romeros, writing his Concierto andaluz (four guitars and orchestra) for them in 1967, as well as the Concierto madrigal (two guitars and orchestra) from the previous year, premiered by Angel and Pepe Romero at the Hollywood Bowl. The highly virtuosic Tonadilla (composed 1959; 12 minutes), composed for Ida Presti and Alexandre Lagoya, reveals Rodrigo’s characteristic interest in refreshing Spanish traditions—here the tonadilla, a short, satiric and thoroughly vernacular theater entr’acte—and his use of pungent dissonance in generally tonal contexts. Sometimes the dissonance is an acerbic intensifier, as in the hot-tempered opening movement; in other places, such as the rondo-like finale, it adds a mocking, comic zest. The middle movement quotes, pompously, Luigi Boccherini, the great Italian cellist and composer who was so important to the musical life of Madrid during the last decades of the 18th century (and whose Fandango, the last movement of one of his quintets for guitar and strings, is a Romero staple).

Romero repertory has always drawn generously from the deep wells of Spanish music, not least the many forms and flavors of flamenco. The farruca is one of the lighter dances from that tradition, probably best-known in concert halls through “The Miller’s Dance” from Manuel de Falla’s ballet El sombrero de tres picos. “This farrucas(composed 1976; 4 minutes) is my tribute to the great guitarist Sabicas,” writes Pepe Romero, “and to Carmen Amaya, who could take a farruca and transform it into a beautiful female dance while keeping all the power and strength that was ever brought to this dance form.”

Probably the most popular of all instrumental zarzuela excerpts is the zesty Intermedio from La boda de Luis Alonso (composed 1897; 6 minutes), a medley of several traditional dances. As a composer, Jerónimo Giménez specialized in the género chico, including El baile de Luis Alonso and its sequel, La boda de Luis Alonso. The title character was a historical dancing master from Cádiz, where both of these works take place. Their token plots are simply vehicles for lots of dancing.

As music director of the Teatro de la Zarzuela in Madrid, Jerónimo Giménez also conducted the first performance in Spain of Carmen. This revolutionary work by Georges Bizet shocked Paris and the Ópera Comique at its premiere, but would have seemed quite familiar—in form and content—to zarzuela audiences in Madrid. Although Bizet never went to Spain, the country came to him in the form of the Empress Eugenie, the Spanish wife of the Emperor Louis Napoleon. Her presence in the French capital made all things Spanish the fashionable rage there for years—even after she and her husband were deposed in 1870, following the debacle of the Franco-Prussian War—and the rhythms of Spanish dances and thrumming imitations of guitars filled Bizet’s score. This Carmen Suite(arranged 1873-74) is a sort of live mix tape of favorite numbers, instrumental and vocal, reconfigured for guitar quartet.

Heitor Villa-Lobos met and became close friends with André Segovia while the Brazilian composer was living in Paris in the 1920s. Villa-Lobos composed 12 Etudes for Segovia in 1929, and the Five Preludes, though written for Segovia in 1940, were dedicated to Mindinha—i.e. Arminda, the composer’s second wife. Of the two selections being performed tonight (9 minutes), the Prelude No. 1 is an A-B-A form, with haunted lyricism surrounding a vivacious little dance. Although perhaps the most rhapsodic of the five, the Third Prelude is also one of Villa-Lobos’ many tributes to J. S. Bach, a toccata-style piece in two contrasting sections.

The twelve Danzas españolas are among the earliest works of Enrique Granados, composed roughly between 1888 and 1900 and published in four volumes. They represent the sense, the life, and the character of Spain, Granados wrote. “The musical interpretation of Spain is not to be found in the tawdry boleros and habaneras in Carmen, in anything accompanied by tambourines and castanets. The music of my nation is far more complex, more poetic, and more subtle.” In tonight’s two selections (11 minutes), the sinuous Orientale is another A-B-A form, as in so many dances. Its middle part sings like an exotic lullaby, framed by a richly embellished cantilena over a repetitive, figural accompaniment of stubborn personality. The rustic Villanesca is also in A-B-A form, a gently chiming dance tune with a darker, march-like middle section.

The venerable jota—the name is originally Moorish—became quite popular with composers throughout Europe in the 19th century. An athletically hopping dance particularly claimed by the eastern province of Aragon, the jota was adopted by composers from Camille Saint-Saëns and Franz Liszt to Mikhail Glinka and Mily Balakirev, to say nothing of Spaniards such as Pablo de Sarasate. Francisco Tárrega, the virtuoso who laid the foundations of modern guitar technique, inherited a Jota aragonesa from his teacher Julián Arcas, which Tárrega reworked and expanded with his own flamboyant introduction and fresh variations (composed c. 1872; 11 minutes), displaying every facet of his fabled technique.

De Cádiz a la Habana(composed 2007; 4 minutes) is another piece inspired by Pepe Romero’s friendship with Sabicas and Carmen Amaya, and his respect for their artistry. The title, “From Cádiz to Havana,” suggests the cultural travel between Spain and the New World, and the music is rooted in the rhythm of the colombianas, a hybrid flamenco form that lays Colombian song shapes over Cuban rhythms. As such, the piece might also be a theme song for the Romero’s 50th anniversary, embodying the family’s own journeys, musical as well as geographical.

© 2009 John Henken