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LETTER of the MONTH
Plucky spirits
It’s fortuitous that Sean Shibe (cover, October) decided to be a guitarist. Undoubtedly, he’s changing the trajectory of the instrument and its repertoire, one that really had come to a dead end. Yes, since Julian Bream there have been many fine players, many of whom have eclipsed Bream’s virtuosic but essentially self-taught, rather torturous technique, but none of whom would have had the chutzpah as Bream did to go up to Stravinsky during an orchestral rehearsal and offer to play Dowland on the lute in the hope that he could be persuaded to write something for the guitar. OK, Bream was unsuccessful on that occasion, but he got round Britten, Walton, Berkeley et al and so gifted the guitarand, like Bream, has the need to be collaborative. He is his own person with an intellect, technique, musicality and vision that is rare; and an instinct and self-belief to rattle cages and take the instrument to places others cannot reach, even if they knew such places existed. And I have never heard Bach so beautifully played on the guitar – not even by Bream.
