Diapason has given a five-star review to Sean Shibe’s Vesper, praising Thomas Adès’s contributions in particular as ranking among the most extraordinary written for the guitar since Henze’s Royal Winter Music.
The review highlights Adès’s Forgotten Dances as a perpetual investigation of illusion that pushes the instrument’s limits, drawing on the 16th-century lute only to blur its conventions — from a narcotic Berceuse to high harmonics haloing the Courante. Diapason notes that Adès’s title work, Vesper, built on a ground borrowed from Purcell, forces Shibe out of his comfort zone and casts a shadow over the pieces’ otherwise timeless serenity.
Diapason also praises Harrison Birtwistle’s Beyond the White Hand, noting that despite the composer’s own reservations, its atonality proves accommodating, with echoes of traditional harmony running through the eighteen-minute score. James Dillon’s Twelve Caprices close the album, described as both a study and a kind of musical haiku, brought to life through Shibe’s concentrated gesture.
Vesper is out now on PENTATONE.
