Brilliant classical guitarist who won four Grammys
“An Englishman playing a guitar is a kind of blasphemy,” the Spanish violinist Juan Manén declared in the 19th century. Julian Bream, who has died aged 87, laid that dictum to rest, said The Daily Telegraph. He not only became Britain’s premier classical guitarist: it was “thanks to Bream and a handful of others that the guitar assumed its place as a serious instrument”. Yet astonishingly, since top-flight classical guitarists were few and far between when he was growing up in the 1940s, Bream was himself largely self-taught.
Born in 1933, Julian Bream was brought up in Battersea, south London. His parents, he said, had “about eight” children, and he was the eldest. His father, a commercial artist who played in local dance bands, gave him his first guitar, introduced him to the music of Django Reinhardt and fostered his love of jazz. Later, he heard a recording by Andrés Segovia, and started his “love affair” with classical guitar, said The Guardian. But his parents had arranged for him to be taught the piano, and when he won a place at the Royal College of Music, aged 12, it was to study piano, with the cello as his second instrument. “There was no question of him studying the guitar – there was no one capable of teaching him.” And though he gave a “groundbreaking” demonstration recital there, he was asked to leave his guitar at home. He had some lessons with Boris Perott, a Russian émigré, but he said that they were only of “cursory value”, and he spent years creating his own technique. His father thought it was a mistake – that he’d never earn a living playing classical guitar. But that, Bream said, only made him more “doggedly persistent”.
By the age of 14, he was performing on soundtracks for Ealing Studios; and in 1950, he made his London debut – a few days before his father died. It was a triumphant concert at the Wigmore Hall in 1951, however, that launched his career and propelled him to international success. Around the same time, he came across a volume of lute solos by the Elizabethan composer John Dowland. He was so entranced, he learned to play the lute himself, and also transcribed the music for the guitar. In 1960, he formed the Julian Bream Consort, a period-instrument ensemble that did much to drive the resurgence of interest in Tudor music. He also commissioned new works for the guitar from the likes of Malcolm Arnold, Benjamin Britten and William Walton, much enriching the instrument’s repertoire. For his many recordings, he won four Grammys.
Off stage, Bream “lived life in the fast lane, or as fast a lane as his collection of classic cars would allow”, said The Times. His days were “punctuated by seemingly endless quantities of women, drink and cigarettes”. A visitor to his flat reported finding 18 pairs of dress shoes under the bed, and a room full of unopened letters. Bream, who retained his strong London accent, liked to run his own diary, accepted payment only in cash, and would happily drive his own van across Europe to gigs. Both his marriages – to Margaret Williamson (daughter of the novelist Henry Williamson) and Isabel Sanchez – ended in divorce. In 1984, he was involved in a car crash that shattered his right elbow. It could have spelled the end of his career, but before having an operation that would limit his movement in his arm, he asked the surgeon to set it in the best position for plucking guitar strings. In 1998 he suffered a heart attack, but was back on the road three months later. He gave his final official performance in 2002, but carried on giving recitals at churches near his home on the Wiltshire-Dorset border until 2011 when, while out walking his beloved dog Django, he was knocked over by a neighbour’s dog, and broke both his hips.