So you’d like to…
listen to Julian Bream’s lute recordings.
Well, you’d better hurry, because you may not have the chance much longer: Bream’s CDs are being deleted as fast as you can blink.
Bream and the Lute
Not only is Julian Bream1 undeniably one of the greatest guitarists of all time, he is also responsible almost single-handedly for rescuing the lute and its repertory from the museum. While it’s true he had illustrious contemporaries or near-contemporaries such as Eugène Dombois, Walter Gerwig and Diana Poulton, it’s doubtful if more than a few of the thousands of lutenists now playing world-wide would be doing so, were it not for the series of stunning recordings he produced between 1960 and 1980 for RCA. These were:
1960 The Golden Age of English Lute Music
1963 Elizabethan Music2
1967 Lute Music from the Royal Courts of Europe
1968 Dances of Dowland
1973 The Woods So Wild
1975 Concertos For Lute & Orchestra
1976 Lute Music of Dowland
1980 Music of Spain Vol.1
(The last-mentioned is actually music written for vihuela, the instrument of preference in Spain, presumably because the lute [from the Arabic “al ’ud”] was associated with the now-ejected Moors.)
There were further recordings with the Consort of the Courtly Dances from Benjamin Britten’s Gloriana and the Vivaldi Lute Concerto in D RV93, both included with Bream’s first recording of Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez; and there were also some other odds and ends that it’s hard to keep track of3.
Notwithstanding all the above, these recordings attracted some criticism from advocates of authenticity in Early Music performance, because Bream plays the lute like a guitar — i.e. with his fingernails. Perhaps the most apposite comment in this topic is by fellow-lutenist and director of the Consort of Musicke Anthony Rooley:
”We know for certain that Alessandro Piccinini advocates playing with nails.
“There are about six scraps of information on the subject. And this is a ludicrous argument that we’ve got ourselves into, which began in 1975, and got really hot by about 1976 or ’77, when the received opinion became “You cannot be authentic and play with nails”. Which is absolutely bananas: because of these six shreds of information that can be assembled, three of them say, don’t play with nails because it’s a horrible sound (which shows that somebody did play with nails); one of them says precisely that you should play with nails because you get the best kind of sound; one is ambiguous; and the other says that flesh is more beautiful.
”This suggests to me that in the 16th century, some played with nails and some played without.”4
Furthermore, to judge by their comments in the booklets for The Royal Lewters and A Varietie of Lute Lessons, Bream’s detractors certainly do not include Paul O’Dette or Nigel North.
The Lute on CD
There is a double album of early recordings, Fret Works.
The LPs listed above seem to correspond more or less to the following CD releases:
The Golden Age of English Lute Music includes 9 extra tracks recorded live in 1963 in Massachusetts.
The Julian Bream Consort contains the Courtly Dances and Vivaldi Concerto in addition.
Lute Music from the Royal Courts of Europe contains 2 extra tracks, but is missing the Mudarra Fantasia.
Dances of Dowland contains 6 extra tracks from the Lute Music of Dowland LP.
The Woods So Wild contains 3 extra tracks from the Lute Music of Dowland LP
What has happened to the Concertos I don’t know.
Lute Music of Dowland seems too have been partially rolled into Dances and Woods, but otherwise to be extinct.
Music of Spain Vol.1 also contains the missing Mudarra Fantasia.
There is an album by the Consort that is only on CD:
Plus there is an all-Bach CD, Bach: Lute Suites, Trio Sonatas. Seemingly bizarrely, the Lute Suites are played, not on the lute, but on the guitar. This is because the Suites were written, not for the Renaissance lute, which is Bream’s area of expertise, but for the Baroque lute, which is quite a different animal with a lot more strings (and a different tuning). The Trio Sonatas, however, are terrific arrangements for lute and harpsichord.
Voice and Lute
Bream has also produced the following collaborations:
Elizabethan Lute Songs (with Sir Peter Pears)
Heavenly Love Earthly Joy (with Sir Peter Pears)
Two Loves (with Dame Peggy Ashcroft)
Bream on DVD
¡Guitarra! contains considerable material on the vihuela, the lute’s cousin.
My Life in Music contains wonderful anecdotes and archival footage of the protagonist’s early exploration of the lute and its repertory.
Conclusion
Better buy up them second-hand CDs fast! Unless, of course, you are both rich and lucky enough to get hold of:
Julian Bream — The Complete Album Collection
(The word is that you shouldn’t buy the 28-CD complete Julian Bream RCA Boxed set from 1993:
Julian Bream Edition (Complete)
because it’s:
a) Badly engineered
b) Deleted, and overpriced second-hand
c) Incomplete.)
Good hunting!
Notes
1There are several references on the ’Net to “Sir Julian Bream”, and a putative knighthood in 1964; but this appears to be an error: he received an O.B.E. in 1964 (and a C.B.E. in 1985), but neither of these implies an accolade.
2The original title in the U.K. was “Elizabethan Music”. It was reissued in 1967 as a two-LP boxed set entitled Elizabethan Serenade. The extra pieces were:
BYRD
• Galliard
• Pavana Bray
DOWLAND
• Captain Digorie Piper’s Galliard
• In Darkness Let Me Dwell
• Lowest Trees Have Tops
• Melancholie Galliard
• Queen Elizabeth’s Galliard
• Say, Love, If Ever Thou Didst Find
• Semper Dowland, Semper Dolens
• Sir Henry Gifford’s Almaine
• Sir John Langton’s Pavan
• Sir John Smith’s Almaine
• Sorrow, Stay
• Time’s Eldest Son, Old Age
• Wilt Thou Unkind, Thus Reave Me?
3Early recordings include Fret Works (1956–57), since reissued (see “The lute on CD”).
Chris Erwich from Holland tells me that he has a record named Ayres For Four Voices by “The Golden Age Singers directed by Margaret Field Hyde”. A small name at the lower base of the sleeve mentions Julian Bream on the lute. He guesses this record might be Bream’s very first, but is not able to confirm that. He thinks it was recorded around 1953.
Update 2008: this has now been reissued as:
Julian Bream Plays Dowland And Bach
4Interview with the present writer in Guitar International magazine, March 1989.
(Since Alessandro Piccinini has been mentioned, I can’t resist quoting him:
“Playing cleanly is the most important skill that a player tries to attain. Each minim should be as pure as a pearl. He who does not play in this way has little self-esteem.
In France no one has any self-esteem, and no one plays cleanly or delicately.”)
