May 7th. Círculo de Bellas Artes. Sala Fernando de
Rojas
HOLY WATER
Text: Manuel Moraga
The program was divided in two acts: Rafael Riquení’s
recital and José Menese accompanied by the same guitarist.
Riqueni began alone with his guitar, something we were all
grateful for and which goes perfectly with the subtitle of
the series, “open heart”. You don’t get
many opportunities to see the man from Triana, and it’s
worth enjoying him with no frills…in other words, no other
instruments to dilute the essence.
Riqueni offered a fundamentally classic recital, that brought
together not only the music, but also the ideas and feeling
of maestros like Sabicas or Niño Ricardo. From his
repertoire he played his fandangos “To Niño Miguel”
which has become a classic. In the final analysis Riqueni
may be the most classic of his generation. A sort of classicism
which, lest we forget, is not at odds with creativity.
With Riqueni there’s no concern for reaching the limits
of flamenco…quite the contrary. His discourse has no pretensions
to avant-gardism as such, but rather his game is closer to
a center-fielder with initiative, the kind who create an invisible
force to field a variety of moves which are then passed on
to others. And his plays are brilliant. The thing is, that
intellectual control of the playing field of flamenco possibly
affords him a taste for remembering his maestros, those people
who once pulled the guitar out of the defensive zone.
And
precisely in that musical nakedness, we see Riqueni with a
great deal of self-confidence. His guitar sounded clean and
luminous, like holy water.
With these coordinates, Riqueni invited Menese who appeared
delighted. His tonás (“para que descanse Rafaelito”)
seemed to say we were in for a recital of good solid cante…but
it wasn’t meant to be. Things didn’t come together
and Menese was seen to be struggling more than one would expect,
which didn’t make for a good showing. Even so, the singer
stuck it out bravely. He did tarantos, farruca and peteneras
before “digging into the nitty-gritty”, a way
Mairena had of referring to soleá. Riquení accompanied
his guest artist with a playing style that was clearly pleasing
to him, and it was all carried out with much tender, loving
care. Rafael was an excellent host.
The audience demanded curtain calls, and Menese and Riqueni
did siguiriyas: these people from La Puebla mean business.
In my opinion it was the best part of the night. The early
difficulties were forgotten. It’s like the Arcipreste
de Hita said: “better cursed wine than holy water”.
