The soul of Spain – Watch guitarist Julian Bream play the superb Suite española
Colour, passion and sheer musicality are just a few words that come to mind when guitar lovers think of Julian Bream.
The brilliance of Bream
Whereas guitar enthusiasts often think of Bream’s contemporary, John Williams, as the inheritor of Andrés Segovia’s technical expertise, many of these same enthusiasts will nonetheless still regard Bream as the guitar’s chosen representative.
Like all virtuosic instrumentalists, his primary concern is to fervently communicate a composer’s ideas and emotions to an appreciative audience.
And when listening to Bream, or watching him play, he really does seem to be a conduit for the music’s beauty, vitality and expression.
Quite simply, Bream has the ability to meet the music’s every demand, bringing it to life in a way that only the truly gifted can.
From technical challenges to subjective choices about melodic phrasing, he never appears to be fighting the guitar to bring it under his mastery.
This isn’t even to mention his sublime subtlety.
In the below two videos, as his hands and fingers fly over the fretboard, it looks as if the instrument yields willingly to his every command.
I could go on (and on), but it’s time to let Bream’s guitar do the talking on his behalf.
Bream plays Isaac Albéniz’s Sevilla (Sevillanas)
The emotion of the Spanish guitar
Over the course of the second half of the 20th century, Bream was regarded by many as the “interpreter” of Spanish guitar music for the English public at large.
Whereas famed guitar composers like Tárrega, de Falla, Sor and Villa-Lobos all come to mind, it is perhaps the vividness of Isaac Albéniz’s Suite española that captured (and still captures) the hearts of audiences worldwide.
Bream plays Isaac Albéniz’s Granada (Serenada)
Isaac Albéniz and the Suite española
The Suite española (the Spanish Suite) was written for the piano, but like much of Albéniz’s music, it was transcribed for the guitar.
The composer’s music, arguably, translates so well to the guitar because Albéniz often incorporated Spanish guitar idioms to create music that expressed the spirit of the Spanish people.
In the original suite, he attempted to capture the essence of four Spanish regions: Granada, Cataluña, Sevilla and Cuba (at the time of composition in the mid-1880s, Cuba was part of Spain).
Four more pieces were added to the suite in 1912 after Albéniz’s death.
A bit more about Bream
The beginnings
Bream’s father was a commercial artist, but it was his piano playing that first set the imagination of an impressionable young boy alight.
At the age of seven, Bream would be exposed to the guitar as his father accompanied an organ played by a farmer’s wife (the family had been evacuated to a farm during World War II).
Taking note of his son’s passion, Bream senior gave Julian a Salvador Ibáñez made guitar for his eleventh birthday in 1944.
This would certainly prove to be a pivotal moment in the history of 20th century music.
Endowed with a hunger for more insight into music, its harmonic structure and his instrument, Bream taught himself a tremendous amount from books, ear and experimentation.
In later life, his individualistic style (for example, often changing the angle of his right hand’s fingers to increase the force of dynamic changes and to extract greater tonal depth from the guitar’s natural repertoire) could be attributed to the exploration of these formative years.
Royal College of Music
Bream’s entrance to the London Royal College of Music in 1946, however, was based on his playing the cello and piano.
Although the cello and piano were orchestral instruments that Julian could build a career with, his commitment to the guitar couldn’t be dislodged.
Beyond the guitar
By 1960, Bream’s guitar work had already attracted much acclaim, and his additional affinity for the lute and its Elizabethan compositions generated considerable interest from an English art music audience.
In the same year, he formed the Julian Bream Consort, an ensemble of period instruments playing Renaissance pieces.
Accolades
Throughout his career, Bream has been recognised by honours only bestowed on the truly exceptional, including four Grammy Awards and several honorary Doctorates. He was also appointed as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1964 (OBE), and as a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1985 (CBE).
