April 24, 2006
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The Washington Post 4/24/06:   There are few things in life as elegantly seductive as the Spanish guitar – just ask anyone who heard Pepe Romero’s brilliant recital on Saturday night at Westmoreland Congregational Church. Playing to a packed house, Romero showed why he’s one of the great guitarists of our time – complete virtuosity married to exceptional refinement, in the service of music that he knows (and feels) as deeply as anyone alive.

And what extraordinary music this is.  There’s something about the Spanish  character – quietly sensual, passionately intense -- that is most perfectly expressed through the guitar, and Romero brought it alive it in a program that ranged from the moving “Homanaje” of Manuel de Falla, to the fiery, flamenco-steeped music of Agustin Castellon, to a lyrical work by Romero himself.

The drama and technical complexity of this music are real temptations to the showman. But its deepest beauties are only revealed when the passion is restrained and the heart held back -- and at this, Romero is a master.  Even in virtuosic display pieces like Francisco Tarrega’s ferocious “Gran jota” –  a tour de force that evokes everything from snare drums to marching boots – Romero always stays behind the music, etching every detail with precision.

But it was in the more lyrical, inward-looking works, like Enrique Granados’ haunting “La maja de Goya” and the rhapsodic “Fandanguillo” of Joaquin Turina, that Romero showed how profound a musician he really is.  There was not a thoughtless note in any of it, only introspective and almost intimate playing -- as if he were alone, quietly thinking, in a sun-drenched Spanish landscape.