Dublin Guitar Week was inaugurated last Thursday with a recital of Spanish and Argentinian music played by Jose Luis Merlin, who included a number of his own compositions.
The recital opened with three characteristic pieces by Tarrega. Lagrima (a tear) was the title of the first of these and it established the mood for most of the evening. Melancholy reminiscence imbued Tarrega's Adelita and Merlin's Sueno con caballos (a dream with horses) and his Cancion de caminante sol itario (song of the solitary wayfarer) to instance a few out of many. Even Merlin's more lively dance-inspired pieces were titled Suite del recuerdo (suite of reminiscence).
Merlin is very much in the line of Tarrega. The tune is always dominant, it is usually related to a folk background and its treatment is winningly straightforward and respectful. The listener can sit back and gorge on exquisitely presented chocolates with soft centres. The harsher sounds of the guitar were blunted by judicious and unobtrusive amplification.
A less conventional style was evidenced in some pieces by Atahualpa Yupanqui and Gerardo M. Rodriguez. These were almost jazzy and were even livelier than Merlin's Suite del recuerdo.
Yupanqui's three pieces were a vivid recreation of a nocturnal fiesta and were certainly the most colourful items of the evening.
Merlin played them with the same sympathetic attention that he gave his own pieces, in which he manifested a skilled command of rhythmic and dynamic variation and a keen sense of shape.