Sean Shippey: Vesper Album Review – The always creative guitarist brings mind-expanding flights of imagination | classical music

HeyOn his new album, Sean Shippey explores the expressive potential of the guitar through the lens of three British composers. There are interwoven themes here – Spain, 20th-century painters, antique musical forms – but this carefully curated program can be enjoyed piece by piece as a series of mind-expanding flights of imagination.

Thomas Adès’s Forgotten Dances pays homage to the Baroque dance suite, the composer’s quirky titles that imbue traditional forms with an extra imaginative layer. The opener, Queen of the Spiders, for example, combines stately harmonies with sneaking slides and the occasional swoop (“Fatal to the fly!” in the composer’s words). Barcarolle – The Maiden Voyage is a nostalgic sports game. Carillon de Ville is a powerful tribute to guitarist Hector Berlioz. In Vespers (by Henry Purcell), Adès reimagines the older composer’s Evening Hymn Consolation. Shibe’s playing style throughout is very clear and technically flawless.

The revelation for some will be Harrison Birtwistle’s five melodic miniatures, three of which are originals for piano arranged for guitar by Forbes Henderson. Perseuse de Jeanne and his Bedtime Song, the last written for his 10-year-old son, are enchanting lullabies. Written when the composer was just 16 years old, the gentle introspective Oockooing Bird is Birtwistle’s first recognized score. At just over 18 minutes, “Beyond the White Hand” is some of the thorniest music here. Shibe has mastered its fragmented architecture, although it can still be difficult to break.

James Dillon’s book 12 Freaks, a series of brief meditations that explore the relationship between an instrument’s structure and its modes of expression, brings this imaginative narrative to a somewhat far-fetched conclusion.