Guitarist Julian Bream, who died Aug. 14 at the age of 87 in his native England, stepped into a guitar world in which everything had to be done just so … and did not do it that way. By the time he was a teenager, Bream was asking contemporary composers to write for him.
He took an old lute his father bought from a sailor and he revived interest in the instrument and played an important role in launching the early music movement. But again, he didn’t do it quite the way he was supposed to.
Bream was born in central London on July 15, 1933. His family moved to the suburb of Hampton when he was 18 months old. It wasn’t always an easy childhood: He and his younger sister were evacuated twice to the countryside during the Nazi Blitz and the family struggled financially.
Here is the late Julian Bream performing the music of Bach:
