Julian Bream - Music Feature

[Hornspieler]

I've just noticed that my old friend Julian Bream will be celebrating his 80th birthday on Monday 15th July.

I hope that Radio 3 will give appropriate recognition to one of this country's greatest artists (and ambassadors)

Happy Birthday, Jules!

Hornspieler

[salymap]

Yes HS, I didn't know him but friends at Augener visited Dartington Hall, where i believe they heard JB play and met him.

And he attended the wedding of a friend, Gerry Shury, who was later tragically killed on the roads.

One of the great guitarists - happy birthday Julian Bream..

[french frank]

I hope that Radio 3 will give appropriate recognition to one of this country's greatest artists (and ambassadors)

I hope so. We shall see - the Controller is famed for being unable to abide classical guitar music. That weekend Breakfast presenter who appeared once and (as a guitarist himself) played several guitar pieces doesn't seem to have appeared again ...

Two, actually: Torroba and Albéniz.

[BBMmk2]

Maybe some JSB too?

[Ferretfancy]

Maybe some JSB too?

I hope so! I've always enjoyed his Bach recordings from the 1960s recorded in the Adam Library at Kenwood House. The critics sniffed, but who cares?

[Richard Tarleton]

And a very happy birthday from me too, thank you HS for flagging it up. A great artist - I first saw him in November 1969, in Oxford Town Hall, and many times since. Great memories - perhaps none more than an all-Dowland lute recital at the QEH in 1972, where I sat in the middle of the front row - lute playing has moved on since then but Bream fired my love of Dowland and early English music. If people haven't discovered them, his last 4 CDs, recorded on EMI, are among his very finest, including another all-Bach disc.

I hope so! I've always enjoyed his Bach recordings from the 1960s recorded in the Adam Library at Kenwood House.

Indeed - and his marvellous "Popular Classics for Spanish Guitar" was also recorded there - I think it was during those sessions that his favourite Robert Bouchet guitar was stolen from the boot of his car

I was unaware of RW's tastes in this regard, and would love to know who the presenter was, but don't want to spoil this thread by discussing RW! Can you tell me by pm please ff, or would you have to shoot me afterwards

[Sir Velo]

The critics sniffed, but who cares?

They all laughed at Christopher Columbus when he said the world was round....

[french frank]

He endeared himself to me in one of his interviews when he described how there were passages which he kept getting wrong, so he practised them over and over and over and over and over again until he got them right. Then he would play them in a live performance and get them wrong again.

[salymap]

I half caught a R3 reference to a slot on Julian Bream next Saturday morning on R3.

Yes, 12.15 to 1pm on the 13th.

[Paul Campbell]

I half caught a R3 reference to a slot on Julian Bream next Saturday morning on R3.

I hopeI got it right. ......

Absolutely! He is the subject of Music Feature at 12:15. I quote... "Tom Mckinney meets guitarist Julian Bream on the eve of his 80th birthday to discuss his career and a defining composition by Benjamin Britten that helped to elevate him and his instrument onto the global stage".

[Hornspieler]

Absolutely! He is the subject of Music Feature at 12:15. I quote... "Tom Mckinney meets guitarist Julian Bream on the eve of his 80th birthday to discuss his career and a defining composition by Benjamin Britten that helped to elevate him and his instrument onto the global stage".

Good news indeed! Julian was always a great raconteur and his conversation some years back with the singer Marianne Faithful was hilarious.

I'm looking forward to it.

HS

[Richard Tarleton]

Good news indeed! Julian was always a great raconteur and his conversation some years back with the singer Marianne Faithful was hilarious.

I heartily recommend his DVD "My Life in Music", avaiable from Amazon - a series of conversations filmed in and around his former home in Semley covering every aspect of his life and work from early childhood onwards, with much archival footage and many performances both from the archives and filmed specially for the DVD, plus a number of valuable "bonus features".

It doesn't include the conversation with Marianne Faithfull, though - that would have been better than the infamous and excruciating encounter with Stravinsky which is included!

As HS says, aways a great raconteur. Also recommended is his book with Tony Palmer, "A Life on the Road", again based on conversations and covering every aspect of his performing career with much anecdote both serious and hilarious - available second hand, just, at eye-watering prices.

[salymap]

He must be a nice, he befriended Gerry Shurry,a colleague at work, and actually attended Gerry's wedding to Sim, another colleague.

For some reason he was known as Julian Dream by them.

A very happy 80th to him.

[Hornspieler]

As Julian Bream approaches his 80th Birthday:

A most interesting and informative programme about one of the World's most famous guitarists. (1215 on Radio 3 today)

Julian in fine form and sounding exactly the same as when I first met him in 1953.

A little surprising that there was no mention of the lutanist Desmond Dupré, who held the banner for promoting the lute before JB came along.

Forty five minutes of conversation, reminiscences and music.

If you missed it, do catch it on iPlayer.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b036ts1w

HS


BTW; Happy Birthday on Monday, Jules.

[johnb]

Julian Bream - Music Feature

I very much enjoyed the "Music Feature" on Julian Bream that followed today's Summer CD Review. The programme certainly captured the qualities that, for many of us, made Bream by far the most important classical guitarist of the C20, after Segovia.

It is well worth catching on iPlayer, even if you aren't overly enamoured with the classical guitar.

Incidentally, I see that Sony Classical are releasing a 43 disc box of Bream's (presumably RCA) recordings - available in September for £78 on Amazon UK.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Julian-Bream/dp/B00BCCEBRI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1373734877&sr=8-1&keywords=julian+bream