Julian Bream

Julian Bream was born in Battersea, London, in July 1933, the son of a commercial artist who played jazz guitar and gave him his first lessons. He won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music at thirteen — where, the guitar not being a recognised conservatoire instrument, he studied piano and cello while continuing his own guitar work privately. He made his concert début at the Cheltenham Festival in 1947 and his BBC début in 1948, by which time the lute had become his second principal instrument.

His career across the next sixty years did more than any other to bring the classical guitar and the Renaissance lute into the central concert repertoire of the twentieth century. Britten composed his *Nocturnal after John Dowland* for him (1963); William Walton, his *Five Bagatelles for Guitar* (1972); Henze, Arnold, Berkeley, Tippett, Maw and Maxwell Davies each wrote substantial guitar works for him. His RCA and EMI recordings — including the substantial Bach lute repertoire, the Bream Consort recordings of Elizabethan music, the Spanish and South American guitar repertoire (Granados, Albéniz, Villa-Lobos), and the duo recordings with John Williams — established the guitar as a serious recital and recording instrument internationally. His Aldeburgh Festival appearances and the Wigmore Hall recitals across decades shaped post-war British understanding of the historical lute repertoire.

Bream was appointed CBE in 1985 and Companion of Honour in 2018. He died in Donhead St Andrew, Wiltshire, in August 2020. Music Preserved’s archive includes a substantial range of his recital and concert work across the guitar and lute repertoires.