The Contest
Lets compare two recordings of Joaquin Rodrigo’s famous Concierto de Aranjuez as a duel between guitarists Ricardo Gallen and Pepe Romero.
The Competitors
- Ricardo Gallen performs on Volume 2 from the Naxos 9-volume “Complete Orchestral Works of Joaquin Rodrigo” series (each disc $8.99 on Amazon) under the baton of Maximiano Valdes conducting the Astoria Symphony Orchestra. Actually, I heard this disc on Naxos Complete Tracks (see my About page) at FM-radio quality.
- Pepe Romero performs on a Philips 2-CD compilation titled “Complete Concertos for Guitar and Harp” ($17.98 at Amazon.com) under the baton of Sir Neville Marriner conducting the Academy of St Martin in the Fields.
The pieces available on the Philips release are scattered across Naxos volumes 2, 5, and 9 – making the Philips compilation the better deal. However, with Naxos Complete Tracks I sacrifice quality to hear all 3 Naxos discs for pennies. I’m half-way through a $20/year subscription and have listened to 70-discs (many more than once), which figures to 14-cents a disc! True, I don’t own them and I didn’t hear them at best quality…
…Sorry, you’re going to thing this is a flog (fake blog for marketing purposes, which it isn’t) if I keep sounding like an advertisment. Actually, Naxos wants you to subscribe to their Music Library for $15-20/month NOT their Complete Tracks for $20/year – at least that’s what their new ad on the CD pages says to me. :) So what I’m telling you is a steal!
Considerations
I heard Pepe Romero at CD-quality and Ricardo Gallen at near-FM radio quality. I’ll try to account for that in my comments below.
My time listings (mm ss) refer to the Romero recording heard through Creative MediaSource which provided the track time (the embedded Windows Media Player on Naxos.com doesn’t show the time, at least on my home PC).
“Allegro con spirito”
Overview – Gallen’s performance runs 6m 07s (367s), compared to Romero’s at 6m 14s (374s). A few seconds of whitespace and the slightest variation in tempo account for the 2% difference.
Highlights – At 0m 17s the energetic guitar solo breaks into rapid strumming that sets the strings ringing. This is followed by a run of single notes on the guitar, alternating with the orchestra up to about 0m 38sec.
The orchestra builds the theme to 1m 29s where the guitar takes the lead. Delciate plucking can be heard at about 2m 25s followed by a virtuouso runs at about 2m 43s, 3m 25s, and 4m 23s.
Comparison – Gallen’s strings ring less during the rapid strumming at 0m 17sec. Whether this is an artifact of the FM-quality compression, and whether less ring is good or bad – I do not know. But, I like the effect from Gallen’s guitar as I heard it.
The violin passage from 2m 55s and forward is skillfully performed on both recordings. At 3m 20s, the Asturias Symphony Orchestra seems to bury Gallen’s guitar, whereas Romero’s strikes the right balance against The Academy of St Martin in the Fields. This is probably a recording studio problem and not a performance issue.
Conclusion – Two solid performances, aspects of each appeal to me – call this a tie.
“Adagio”
Overview – Romero’s interpretation runs 12m 05s (725s), whereas Gallen takes only 11m 03s (663s). This 62s difference amounts to about 9%. The difference appears to arise from Gallen’s faster tempo.
Highlights – The soulful orchestra introduces the main theme accompanied by a strumming guitar. At 0m 41s the orchestra softly sets the theme down for the guitar to pick up and repeat. This alternation of melody between orchestra and guitar occurs immediately again at 1m 19s until 2m 40s, where the orchestra swells with pathos.
From 4m 38s to 6m 02s the guitar plays both parts, background strumming and main theme. 7m 0s begins a frenetic guitar section requiring absolute mastery.
At 9m 16s the orchestra provides resounding bass “bump”s between strenuous guitar strumming. The final few seconds have the guitar working up the scale to a really high note.
Comparison – In spite of Gallen’s performance being 1 minute shorter, both he and Romero take the same amount of time (about 41s) to craft the opening mood of the Adagio.
At about 5m 38 sec (in the middle of the guitar solo) Gallen attacks his pluck and run much more harshly than Romero does. At 9m 16s the guitar part strums frantically, interleaved with deep bass “bumps” (see highlights, above). Gallen takes the strumming sections much slower than Romero. In these two spots I prefer Romero’s interpretation.
Conclusion - Both guitarists turn in perfect performances, but Romero’s interpretation edges out Gallen for me. Romero wins this round.
“Allegro gentile”
Overview – Gallen and Romero’s performances differ by 13s across 300+s (less than 5%), with Romero again performing the longer track.
Highlights - A phenominal section of rapid plucking starts at 3m 30s, but is very soft against the orchestra – don’t miss it!
Comparison - I enjoyed both performances and found no significant differences on which to comment.
Conclusion - Excellent performances – tied again.
Results of the Duel
Score summary: Tie, Romero, Tie. ROMERO WINS! I found both performances excellent and only preferred Romero’s interpretation for about 15 of the 1400+ seconds (or 1% of the total listening time).
