Download The six-concert Marlow Guitar Series at Westmoreland

CLASSICAL MUSIC
Guitarist Carlos Perez
The six-concert Marlow Guitar Series at Westmoreland Congregational Church in
Bethesda draws capacity audiences. Saturday's revelatory performance by classical
guitarist Carlos Perez proved no exception.
Fresh from a Carnegie Hall debut, he is an expressive, impassioned player with
astonishing technical prowess. These qualities stood him in good stead through most of
the evening, which he dedicated to his native Chile's bicentennial and the recent rescue of
trapped miners in that country.
His most persuasive playing came in the second half of the program with 20th-century
works by Venezuelan Antonio Lauro and Spain's Joaquin Rodrigo. In three pieces by
Lauro, Perez underscored the slightly Viennese lilt of the "Vals Venezolano," caressed
the "Romanza" with pure poetry speaking of ancient modal melodiousness, and raced
through the "Pasaje Aragueno," missing none of its Spanish fandango undercurrents.
Rodrigo's "Elogio de la Guitarra" brought the absolute peak of the evening, Perez
showering on it a lofty degree of imaginative coloring, dramatic twists and sheer
virtuosity. Four Chilean folk songs arranged by the guitarist ended the concert on a
melodious, contemplative note.
But the Bach Suite, BWV 1010 (originally for cello and transcribed by Perez), was
unconvincing. Except in the freshly paced Gigue, the composer's signature metrical and
harmonic pulse was lost in the performer's aimless subjectivity with plodding tempos and
exaggerated ritardandos at every cadence.
The fabled Spanish guitarist Andres Segovia used to play in the vast openness of
Washington's Lisner Auditorium without audio enhancement. It would be interesting to
hear Perez with no sound system.
-- Cecelia Porter