©Photo: Camilla Greenwell

Sean Shibe presents Profesión, a magical return to the classical guitar

28/9/2023

Sean Shibe returns to the classical guitar on Profesión, bringing together works by Agustín Barrios, Heitor Villa-Lobos and Alberto Ginastera. The album derives its name from Barrios’s ​“Profesión de Fe” (profession of faith), a poem which he often used as a preface to his concerts. The poem references indigenous mythological deities, and praises the power of the guitar as the ultimate conduit to the secrets of the divine South American destiny.

Barrios’s La Catedral and Julia Florida are combined with Villa Lobos’s 12 Études, while Ginastera’s Sonata completes the programme. These works by South American composers begin with homage and pastiche in reverence of the Old World, but build towards a totally original idiom: musical magical realism. The repertoire is voluminous, indulging in excess and narcotic, and as such creates a counterweight to the reserved and introspective nature of Shibe’s acclaimed classical predecessor album Camino.

“…From the outset, the [guitar] is assaulted with relentless physicality, the initial dynamic of the first movement triple forte, along with ​“sempre tutta forza!” for good measure. A jarring counterpoint to the pianistic writing found elsewhere in the programme, perhaps, but not philosophically inconsistent with it either. All of these composers, with very different methods and results, use the guitar as a shamanic conduit to the heritage and destiny of South America.”

Sean Shibe

This will be Shibe’s first-ever album focusing on repertoire that was originally written for the classical guitar, and he plays a Hauser copy built for Julian Bream. It was considered one of the best instruments of the 1930s, and fits the sound world of this programme like a glove.

The album will be released digitally on 17 November 2023.