In Segovia at Los Olivos, the guitarist relates how he first entered Manuel Ramírez’s shop, extravagantly dressed and wielding a ‘very good stick to defend my appearance’; he took umbrage at the luthier’s look of amusement but subsequently relaxed upon being given the guitar which he would play for the next 30-odd years. Revealed in the telling was a gentle self-mockery which I found quite disarming for a man of such achievement.

Christopher Nupen’s documentaries need no introduction; nor does his ability to capture the humanity of his subjects through the careful selection of eloquent details. Segovia at Los Olivos, filmed in 1967 at the maestro’s home (built in what was once an olive grove atop a hill on the Costa del Sol), is a beautifully shot portrait of an artist enjoying his first summer holiday in 34 years by sharing it with his young wife and working on new repertoire. Segovia’s anecdotes, as delightful as they are numerous, are interspersed with performances, musical demonstrations and poetry recitations.

Nupen films the Andalusian countryside and the town of Granada with the eye of a 17th-century Dutch master: careful geometric and chromatic compositions unleash the abundant natural and architectural beauty more effectively than any ‘naturalistic’ contrivances.

The Song of the Guitar was filmed nine years later and features the 84-year-old guitarist performing many of his favourite works in the Alhambra, the place where ‘his eyes were opened to the beauty of Nature and Art’ and where he was ‘born for a second time’. Again the filming, like Segovia’s playing, is full of poetry; Nupen and his team capture the quality of the light to perfection. Discreet visual metaphor is employed to emphasise Segovia’s spiritual connection with his homeland.

So we get sunset over Granada…and Segovia’s sensitive, tapering fingers drawing a Catalan melody, El noy de la mare, from the guitar. He used to pray, ‘My Lord…I request only from you a great favour – leave me here.’ Alas, at the age of 94, six weeks after his final concert, the maestro departed. But we do have these remarkable documents, courtesy of a remarkable film-maker.