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La guitare classique est de plus en plus défendue par une production discographique aux tarifs très accessibles et souvent d'une qualité d’interprétation remarquable. Un vent nouveau et réjouissant souffle sur la guitare classique ! Ce disque regroupant les œuvres d’Asencio est là pour le prouver encore une fois. Portée par une prise de son chaleureuse, intimiste et boisée qui nous colle dans l’onde vibratoire de la caisse de résonance, la porte d’entrée dans ce passionnant répertoire est toute ouverte. La grande dextérité de Pablo Mesirca introduit le disque avec la « collectici intim » sûrement les pages les plus célèbres du compositeur, et referme le disque avec la « suite mistica », comme une évidence, tellement cette guitare appelle à la rêverie intérieure, au son de suaves vibratos d'aigus comme en équilibre sur un fil et d’accords qui jaillissent comme d’éphémères bulles de lumière. (Jérôme Leclair)  As a teacher of piano, theory and composition at the conservatoire in Valencia, Vicente Asencio (1908-1979) played an instrumental part in the success of Narciso Yepes and countless other influential Spanish musicians in the middle of the 20th century. His role as a teacher has unfairly overshadowed his own creative output, which now justly takes the spotlight in the talented hands of the Italian guitarist Alberto Mesirca. Asencio’s output for guitar has previously been investigated on record, including by the young Elise Neumann on Brilliant Classics (BC9287) but this is the first-ever album dedicated to his guitar music. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given his established reputation as a teacher, it reveals a composer of considerable craft and fluency, entirely at home in his adopted medium. Valencian born and bred, Asencio composed a Suite of Homages that became a calling-card for Yepes and other Spanish guitarists looking to play music of their own era that had something distinctive to say about modern Spain to an international audience. In turn, the homages pay tribute to Scarlatti, de Falla and Lorca, and between them they sum up the ingredients of Asencio’s style: the ruminative grace of the Sonatina, the evocative melancholy of the Elegia, and the fiery sensuality of the Tango. Dating from 1965, Collectici íntim was a second commission from Yepes, a character suite of portraits in the manner of the personalities so wittily drawn by Couperin in his keyboard pieces. Suite mistica derives from a piece commissioned by Spanish radio to mark Holy Week in 1971. Andres Segovia was taken with the work, Dipso (‘I thirst’ – one of the Seven Last Words) that he asked Asencio for two companion pieces, which were written on the subject of the Agony in the Garden and then the rushing wind of Pentecost. Finally, from 1971, there is Asencio’s masterpiece for the guitar, the Suite Valenciana in which he celebrates his own cultural heritage in three deceptively simple movements, titled Prelude, Dance and Song in Basque, that are infused with the freshness typical of Valencian music, even though there are no direct references to folk melodies. Asencio’s guitar output is small but finely honed, and recorded here with intense sympathy by Alberto Mesirca.
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