Spanish Classical Guitar & Segovia...

So after reflecting on the musicianship of the flamenco group we saw last night, I thought it fitting to drop a quick note in about Spain's immense contribution to the body of work written for classical guitar. My first guitar was a classical, nylon stringed instrument, and the fingerstyle techniques I learned way back when on that instrument still color how I approach my electric guitar today. Somewhere along the line I was seduced by the stinging electric siren song of Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughn, but any student of the guitar knows that where the instrument and its modern repertoire evolved from... Classical guitar owes a great deal to Andres Segovia (1893-1987), a Spaniard whose life work cast an enormous shadow over 20th century guitarists...
Here's Segovia playing Catalan composer Isaac Albeniz's famous piece "Asturias", originally written for piano....

Here's a snippet from Wikipedia to put Segovia's work in context...
"As Segovia's career and acclaim grew he determined "five purposes" as goals for his legacy. They were outlined by Segovia in Guitar Review No 32, Fall 1969:

1. To extract the guitar from the noisy and disreputable folkloric amusements...
2. I requested the living composers not in the field of guitar to write for me. This was the second of my purposes: to create a wonderful repertoire for my instrument.
3. My third purpose was to make the guitar known by the philharmonic public of the world.
4. ... to provide a unifying medium for those interested in the development of the guitar. This I did through my support of the now well known international musicological journal, the Guitar Review
5. I am still working on my fifth and maybe the last purpose, which is to place the guitar in the most important conservatories of the world for teaching the young lovers of it, and thus securing its future."

Here's a video of him later in life, pushing past 80 years but still dropping gems....