Carlos Paredes - "Coimbra e o Mondego"

Sometimes it seems like listening to Classical Music is like visiting a history museum: everything is old, a legacy of people long dead.  Guitar is not like that - there is still a thriving classical guitar scene in Spain and Portugal.  Carlos Paredes was a master, active pretty much right up to his death not so very long ago.

Paredes is a great example of how Portuguese guitar differs from Spanish guitar.  It has more of an eastern influence, perhaps from Portugal's moorish past, and delights in sad, minor keys - an echo of the Fado songs that have been the Portuguese equivalent of the blues.