Many readers probably know by now that last night in Herbst Theatre was originally scheduled to host a performance by the guitar quartet known as The Romeros, presented jointly by San Francisco Performances (SFP) and the OMNI Foundation for the Performing Arts. Unfortunately, the visit had to be cancelled due to a serious illness in the Romero family. As a result, last night hosted a solo performance by one of the quartet’s founding members, Pepe Romero.
The program was richly diverse, accounting for ten different composers, one of whom returned for the encore selection. Two of them were founders of the quartet. The final work on the program was Celedonio Romero’s “Fantasia Cubana,” which required non-standard finger technique. Pepe contributed to the program with a piece entitled “Granadinas.” Celedino also provided two transcriptions of piano compositions. The first of these was the “Andaluza” movement from Enrique Granados’ Danzas Españolas. This was followed by “Granada,” the first of the eight movements in Isaac Albéniz Opus 47, the first of his Suite española compositions.
The first half of the program was shared by Heitor Villa-Lobos and Joaquín Turina. The first composer was represented by the five preludes he composed for solo guitar. The second was “Sevillana,” the first of only five works for solo guitar composed by Turina.
Francisco Tárrega (photographer unknown, from a Wikimedia Commons Web page, public domain)
The encore selection was taken from the works of Francisco Tárrega. It was his “Gran jota Aragonesa.” He had previously appeared near the end of the program with the performance of “Capricho árabe. Taken as a whole, the diversity of the evening was consistently engaging, with Romero providing just the right course through all of that diversity.
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