In this third episode, Sean reveals a musical impression of Shakespeare’s Ophelia on the guitar, finds the Middle Eastern oud playing American bluegrass music, hears how Benjamin Britten was inspired by master of melancholy John Dowland and muses on Segovia’s odd relationship with composer Heitor Villa-Lobos.

Sean Shibe is a young, award-winning musician who’s changing the way people listen to the guitar. In this new six-part series he presents a personal choice of vibrant and varied pieces by composers from Spanish Renaissance masters to Steve Reich and Django Reinhardt, with performers including Julian Bream, Elizabeth Kenny, Andrés Segovia, John Williams, Joseph Tawadros and William Carter. Sean discovers the characters of the extended guitar family, from the oud, lute and vihuela to the Brahms guitar, decachord and electric guitar, and expresses straight-talking views on players of the past and present who have helped shape his own unique approach to the art of guitar playing. With his guitar on his knee he'll also be showing us what to listen for and what’s physically possible on the instrument.

Over the weeks we’ll hear Sean’s philosophical, intellectual and above all emotional take on the music he knows so well. He opens a door into a world that’s full of subtlety and contrast in its expression of culture and style. It’s a world that invites us in with all sorts of mesmeric and surprising sounds.

A Tandem Production for BBC Radio 3 Show less