It’s a safe bet that Julian Bream, who died on Friday at 87, would be remembered if he’d never done anything but play guitar. Yet Mr. Bream did much more than merely play guitar. He doubled on the lute, the guitar’s ancestor, and was responsible in large part for the postwar revival of interest in that long-forgotten instrument. He led his own ensemble, the Julian Bream Consort, one of the first period-instrument groups, and appeared frequently in recital with the tenor Peter Pears, a professional relationship that was immensely valuable to him. Unlike Segovia, who disliked all but the most conservative 20th-century music, Mr. Bream did more than anyone else to modernize his instrument’s dusty repertoire.

Source: Wall Street Journal August 14, 2020 21:00 UTC