This year’s events [the Alexandria Guitar Festival 2008] opened on Wednesday with the Italian guitarists Lorenzo Micheli and Matteo Mela, who perform together as SoloDuo. Perennial favorites (this was their third year at the festival), they focused on 20th-century works that, while thoroughly contemporary, were largely tonal, romantic in flavor and profoundly lyrical. Two preludes and fugues from Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s “Well-Tempered Guitars,” Op. 199, from 1962, mirrored each other — the first lively and extroverted, the second as tender as a caress — while Astor Piazzolla’s “Tango Suite” from 1984 was an atmospheric work redolent of seduction and sensuality, of sultry, unbuttoned nights in Buenos Aires.
Micheli and Mela are one of the most engaging duos in classical music, and throughout the evening — which included the wonderfully eclectic Toccata by Pierre Petit from 1959, and Joaquin Rodrigo’s stunning “Tonadilla” from 1960 — they brought near-effortless grace to everything they played. From delicate, light-as-air washes of color to unison passages in jaw-dropping precision, this was playing of rare intimacy and insight.Stephen Brookes – The Washington Post. Monday, July 21, 2008. Page C02
