INDIVIDUAL GOALS WITHIN GUITAR QUARTET : ROMEROS BEGIN STRIKING SOLO NOTES

It is not completely business as usual these days for that Fearsome Foursome of the classical guitar, the Romeros--father Celedonio and sons Celin, Pepe and Angel.

Oh, certainly, they’re still the foremost guitar conglomerate on the music scene. They’re still performing whatever repertory has been written for their quartet--notably Joaquin Rodrigo’s “Concierto Andaluz,” which they will perform Saturday night with the Orange County Pacific Symphony, Keith Clark conducting, at Santa Ana High School Auditorium.

And they’re still firmly committed to playing together as an ensemble well into the future.

But each of the three sons, Angel and Pepe most notably, have grown away from being just another Romero and are fostering major solo careers as performers, scholars and teachers.

Angel, the youngest Romero, for example, has been looking into Johann Sebastian Bach’s manuscripts for an upcoming recording for Angel/EMI Records of the complete Bach lute music--played by Angel on guitar, although he is a noted lutenist--and he has made some interesting discoveries.

“For example,” Angel, 39, said in a recent telephone interview, “I found that there really are a number of expressive markings in the manuscript--slurs, phrasing indications, even a kind of legato marking. Everyone told me while I was growing up that Bach had to be played like a clock ticking off, and I’m very excited to find that he never really meant it this way.”

Pepe, meanwhile, has been settling into his teaching and research duties at UC San Diego (where Celin also teaches) in addition to concertizing widely, and he too has been examining some original manuscripts--those of two of the modern guitar’s founding fathers: Mauro Guiliani and Fernando Sor.

“I’ve been searching for new music to play that may have been lying around someplace untouched,” explained Pepe, 41, the middle Romero offspring. “That and trying to get a better idea of how these two performed in their day. Guiliani and Sor were playing guitars quite different to ours, rather like the difference between Mozart’s fortepiano and today’s Steinway. The strings especially were quite different, much more loosely strung, so they did bigger hand stretches and more sliding around on the strings than we can get away with these days.”

Pepe is also investigating Spanish national music--something of a search for musical roots for a Romero, since paterfamilias Celedonio was born in Malaga in 1918.

“So much of Spanish music is rooted in the guitar,” Pepe said. “For instance, I’m working on an album of (early 20th-Century Spanish composer Isaac) Albeniz--music composed for the piano, since Albeniz was a terrific pianist. But what’s interesting is that this piano music has such a strong guitar feel; it’s rooted in flamenco. And that rhythmic flamenco feeling is a matter of blood, of folklore. If you don’t understand the folklore, then you’re scratching the surface of the music.”

But for both brothers, the musicological investigations pay off in performance rather than in scholarly writings.

“Performance practice is the thing,” Pepe said. “More changes need to be made generally, among all of us. But we have to find out what’s appropriate first.”

As they work their findings into their individual styles, all the Romeros will continue to concertize extensively. The complete quartet will tour Europe for seven weeks in October and November. Then Pepe, joined for several dates by Celin, hits the road for another month.

Angel has recently returned from a solo outing that took him from Europe to the Orient, but his concert tour was abruptly shortened when he developed a bad case of strep throat, forcing him to cancel engagements in Holland and Japan. The cancellations generated some strange rumors.

“Somehow, news was reported to the effect that I had had a heart attack backstage, for heavens’ sake. It was crazy. I don’t know how it got started. But I’ve spent the last two months clearing it up. And I want you to know I feel fine .”

And then there’s 1986, which promises a full calendar for all four Romeros--no surprise, since most of their yearbooks have been signed up since they began performing as a unit 22 years ago.

Do the sons feel bound by the limitations of the quartet format?

“Not at all,” Pepe said. “I think playing with the quartet gives us the most repertory flexibility. We can do solos, duets, trios and quartets. It’s great. I’ll never give it up. It’s too much fun playing with our family to just do the solo concerts.”

Angel agreed. “In spite of the fact that playing so much in the quartet limits my time for conducting, composition and so on, it’s still the most rewarding thing to play with the family.”

So the family that plays together does stay together, after all.