Popular Classics for Spanish Guitar Julian Bream

• Heitor Villa Lobos (1887 - 1959):
• 1Chôros No. 1 for Guitar, A. 161 Tipico Brasileiro04:54
• 2Etude in E Minor04:10
• Federico Moreno Torroba (1891 - 1982):
• 3Madroños03:00
• Joaquín Turina (1882 - 1949):
• 4Garotín02:09
• 5Soleares02:00
• Heitor Villa-Lobos:
• 6Prelude in E Minor03:12
• Isaac Albeniz (1860 - 1909):
• 7Granada05:21
• 8Leyenda -Asturias-05:56
• Manuel de Falla (1876 - 1946):
• 9Homenaje, pour le tombeau de Debussy04:15
• Traditional:
• 10El testament d'Amelia -Canciones populares catalanas-02:13
• Joaquín Turina:
• 11Fandanguillo05:14
• Total Runtime42:24

Info for Popular Classics for Spanish Guitar

Julian Bream performs Popular Classics for Spanish Guitar including Tipico Brasileiro and Suite Espanola, Op 47.

The mastery of guitarist Julian Bream is perhaps at its best in Spanish music, and this legendary recording - featuring some of the most popular works ever written for the guitar - gains a new luster and brilliance in high-resolution audio.

„Popular Classics for Spanish Guitar features the virtuosic Julian Bream at his interpretive best and an exemplary choice of repertoire, and it has been acknowledged as one of the all-time best guitar albums since its original LP release in 1963. That said, the sound of this super-audio digital remastering is hard to take. The original LPs were somewhat distant, but they were clean, honest, and present. On a conventional playback system, however, this remastering sounds so far off that it can hardly be said to be present in any meaningful way. One can hear Bream's strong, supple, and sensitive performances, but he sounds like he's playing somewhere deep inside a vast, empty cave.“ James Leonard, AllMusicGuide)

Julian Bream, classical guitar

Recorded November-December 1962 in the Library, Kenwood House, London
Engineered by Robert Auger
Produced by James Burnett

Digitally remastered

Julian Bream
guitarist and lutenist, has delighted audiences since his early recitals as a child prodigy. Following an official debut at Cheltenham on 17 February 1947, at the age of thirteen, he was soon acknowledged as one of the most remarkable artists of the post-war era. By his sixteenth birthday, Julian Bream had taken part in dozens of BBC broadcasts, recitals, and film music, and, furthermore, fascinated by the lute and its culture, had begun researching the Elizabethan repertoire. In November 1951, he made a triumphant debut at the Wigmore Hall, London and, some months later, his first appearance at the Aldeburgh Festival. After studies at the Royal College of Music, and National Service with the Army, Julian Bream’s career pursued its meteoric path. Before long he fulfilled regular engagements on all five continents, including annual tours of the USA and Europe, as well as a busy winter schedule throughout the British Isles.

His solo guitar recitals present an immense variety of compositions including transcriptions from the 17th century onwards. At the other end of the historical spectrum, Julian Bream was paramount in inspiring profound developments in the contemporary guitar repertoire. Eminent composers who dedicated pieces to him include Arnold, Berkeley, Bennett, Britten, Brouwer, Fricker, Henze, Maxwell Davies, Searle, Takemitsu, Tippett, and Walton.

As well as his enthusiasm for modern guitar sonorities, Julian Bream is renowned for his fervent advocacy of the Elizabethan lute. In the world’s concert halls his solo lute recitals, song accompaniments for Peter Pears and Robert Tear, lute / harpsichord concerts with George Malcolm, programmes of poetry and music with Peggy Ashcroft, and his founding of the Julian Bream Consort, offered unprecedented opportunities for audiences to experience early music.

With this uniquely diverse range of activities, and a multitude of broadcasts and television appearances, Julian Bream was acknowledged from the mid-1950’s onwards as one of the great recording artists of the 20th century. From 1958 Julian Bream recorded for RCA, winning many international awards, including six form the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences in the USA, two Edison awards and various prizes from Gramophone magazine. In 1979 RCA presented him with a platinum disc to mark record sales of half a million in the UK alone, as well as gold and silver discs for duo recordings with John Williams. In 1993, to celebrate his 60th birthday, RCA issued The Ultimate Guitar Collection, a unique box set of 28 compact discs, revealing the vast gamut of his recording work. From the beginning of the 1990’s Julian Bream continued his recording career with EMI Classics, featuring music by J.S. Bach, a Concerto album (with the CBSO and Sir Simon Rattle), and discs devoted to contemporary works and guitar sonatas.

Radio and television appearances have made Julian Bream known to a very wide public. A highly successful biographical film, A Life in the Country, was first shown on BBC TV in 1976. Other important programmes included a series of master classes also for BBC TV and in 1984 he made eight films on location in Spain for Channel 4 exploring historical perspectives of Spanish guitar music.

Highlights of Julian Bream’s career in more recent years have been the 1991 BBC Prom performance of Malcolm Arnold’s Guitar Concerto, broadcast on BBC Radio and TV, a recital and concerto performances of works by Takemitsu at the Japan Festival in London (autumn 1991) with the London Symphony Orchestra. During the 1992/3 season he performed on two separate occasions at the Wigmore Hall – at their Gala Re-opening Festival, and at a special concert celebrating his 60th birthday. That year he toured the Far East, visiting Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea and Japan, and performed the premiere of Leo Brouwer’s arrangement for guitar and orchestra of Albéniz’s Iberia at the Proms. In 1994 he made debuts in both Turkey and Israel to great acclaim, and the following year played for the soundtrack to the Hollywood film Don Juan de Marcos.

Julian Bream was awarded an OBE (1964) for services to music and the CBE (1985). He has received Honorary Doctorates from the Universities of Surrey (1968), and Leeds (1984). In 1976 he was personally presented with the Villa-Lobos Gold Medal by the composer’s widow. He was elected an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music (1966), and has been honoured with Fellowships of the Royal College of Music (1981) and the Royal Northern College of Music (1983). In 1988 he became an Honorary Member of the Royal Philharmonic Society, and was also presented with the Royal Philharmonic Society Instrumentalist’s Award in 1996.

In 1997, in celebration if the fiftieth anniversary of his debut, he performed a recital at Cheltenham Town Hall. A few weeks later the BBC dedicated a special television tribute This Is Your Life programme to Julian Bream, filmed after a commemorative concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London.

His engagements in recent years have included a Gala solo performance at the Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool, a Kosovo Aid concert at St. John’s Smith Square, London, with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields recitals at the Snape Proms, Aldeburgh, and at the Norfolk and Norwich Festival and a tour of UK National Trust properties in summer and autumn 2000. In November 2001 he gave an anniversary recital at Wigmore Hall, celebrating 50 years since his debut there in 1951. (Source: Hazard Chase)

Booklet for Popular Classics for Spanish Guitar