In his annotation Yepes discloses that some works of Tarrega survive in different forms, of varying difficulty, but he does not enlighten us as to the provenance of these variant forms, or even those which he uses, but he could not be expected to do so within the single-page note he is permitted. He also says that he got ''to know the fundamental principles of the Tarrega school'' from players and teachers who were associated with Tarrega—but what were those principles? Tarrega did not use his right-hand nails, nor did he have a ten-string guitar (whose extra basses Yepes occasionally deploys), and I doubt that, with his softer attack on less-tense gut strings, his lines were so detache as Yepes's. Knowing and applying may be quite different matters. However, he offers some previously unrecorded and scarcely known pieces and delivers them cleanly (some messy passagework apart) and not inexpressively. The CD has a clear but somewhat hard sound that emphasizes every lack of smoothness in the lines.
There is little in Pepe Romero's programme that has not already been recorded (some of it often) but deletions have minimized the impact of this. Romero is one of the most masterly living technicians, with a wide palette of tone-colour at his fingertips, and, if his interpretations lack the incandescence of those of Segovia in his youth and prime or, in some instances, the 'aristocracy' of Williams, they come from the heart. His early association with flamenco occasionally shows, e.g., not to the music's advantage, in the use of tremolo in Cordoba, but is helpful to Rumores de la caleta. The clipped delivery of the opening section of Cadiz and, certainly, the very free treatment of Adelita (a mazurka) too raise the eye-brows a little. Father Celedonio's pieces are backward-looking but very pleasant vehicles for both firework displays and sentimental reflection. Differences between Romero's approach and those of Segovia, Bream or Williams are largely expressions of their individual temperaments, different solutions to the equation—the balance between the art-musical and Spanish-traditional elements in this music; Romero's are quite superbly recorded.'