At the end of the 19th century, Isaac Albeniz began to compose piano music using rhythms and melodies based on indigenous Spanish and Moorish modes. These pieces were in high contrast to the previously accepted “Spanish” music of the rest of Europe, which was actually written by Russians and Frenchmen (“Capriccio Espagnol” or “Carmen” are no more Iberian than “Il Trovatore” is true music of the Gypsies). Albeniz wrote virtually exclusively for the piano, but this would be a surprising statement to an educated listener of today familiar with his most popular efforts.

The extremely powerful guitar work “Asturias” is probably the best known piece by Albeniz, followed by the beautiful “Granada.” But these are actually Segovia editions of piano studies, and the fact that they are known almost universally as guitar works illustrates the far-reaching effect of Segovia’s influence. Albeniz never wrote for the guitar. If he is a familiar participant in its recital programs, it is Andres Segovia who is solely responsible.

The modern listener naturally associates Spanish music with the guitar repertoire. But in Spain it was considered merely a popular or folk instrument. Padre Antonio Soler – one of the nation’s greatest composers before the 20th century – never composed for the instrument, for example. The Sunday recital by classical guitarist Craig Ogden at the Walter Reade Theater incorporated one “Albeniz guitar piece,” “Castilla” from “Suite Espagnole,” in an eclectic cook’s tour.

Mr. Ogden is principal lecturer in guitar at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester and has an engaging, conversational manner that serves him well as an educator. Using his recital as an opportunity to combine commentary with musical example, he bonded with his audience, who were decidedly younger than average for a classical music program. He even went so far as to admonish them for their cell phone assaults with good-humored but firm argument.

His “inside baseball” text was fascinating for those of us musically trained but also palatable and intelligible to novices. As a prelude to the Albeniz, he carefully explained and illustrated the need to adjust the lowest two strings down a half step in order to achieve that signature grounded, droning Andalusian effect. But he went further, showing that one must actually tune just a tad lower than prescribed, since the tendency of the string is to travel back up to its normal pitch. It is the courageous performer who will consciously begin a piece significantly out of tune, but Mr. Ogden had by then already converted us to his way of hearing.

After a rather inconsequential piece of Brazilian dance music, Mr. Ogden plunged bravely into one of the more thorny and cerebral efforts of Sir Michael Tippett. “The Blue Guitar” is based on an equally difficult poem by Wallace Stevens and offers little familiarity on a first hearing. At least Mr. Ogden has restored the order of movements to the original, undoing the scheme of Julian Bream, which reshuffled them for maximum audience acceptance. Tippett was reasonably popular on this side of the pond in the 1960s, when his pacifism was in vogue, but lately he has passed into such obscurity that 2005, his centenary year, is virtually being ignored.

When I entered the theater, the sight of electronic speakers on either side of the soloist’s bench gave me pause. I was afraid that amplification would seriously compromise this guitar recital, as it has done for the reputation of the instrument itself. But the technology was there only for the most interesting work on the program, the American premiere of “The Hinchinbrook Riffs” by Australian composer Nigel Westlake.

In this evocatively impressionistic realization of the sounds along the Great Barrier Reef above Cairns, Australia, the soloist performs a de facto duet with himself, with the speakers set on a half-second digital delay. The effect was both dreamy and hypnotic, and it was made all the more enjoyable by Mr. Ogden’s best Benny Hill imitation. Laying the printed music out before him on the floor, he unrolled a rather prodigious sheaf of paper, and said, “It’s really not as long as it looks!” It is difficult not to like this guy.

I am by no stretch of the imagination a jazz aficionado, but I did grow up the son of one, and the music of Django Reinhardt was prominent in my house. In an arrangement by Roland Dyens of the classic “Nuages,” Mr. Ogden caught just the right spirit. Django was neither cool nor hot but rather a master at subtly suggesting both of these moods. The lightest possible touch is required and was satisfyingly supplied this particular day.

As an encore, Mr. Ogden caressed a supremely quiet and perhaps overly sentimental version by William Lovelady of “Waltzing Matilda.” But he can be forgiven a touch of the maudlin, being Australian and so far from home. After all, it is essentially their “Danny Boy.”