On Julian Bream: Guitar Talks with Benjamin Verdery

so I'm start with a sort of a general question and I want to start by just asking each one of us to share a little story about Julian bream or perhaps not a story but his personal feeling of how his music moved each one of these musicians I'm gonna start with Fred who not only was my former teacher but who is the only one here who actually studied with Julian bream on a Fulbright scholarship so Fred okay well thank you what comes to mind is that when I was fifteen I fell in love with the Revell Pavan for dead princess and in fact I was playing an edition of it for solo guitar and then I heard Julian bream recording and I said well I'm never gonna play this piece again unless I can play that transcription which was truly magical and lo and behold about eight years later I was sitting in his house and I said to him I've always wanted to play your transcription of that piece and I was really very nervous I mean I thought this was like the culmination of a dream to play this and I was so happy to finally feeling I was going to acquire his transcription and he said well I never wrote it down said I was seeing this Barrett at the time and she fancied the piece so I played it off the piano music that was kind of the end of it so I went home and I had a lot of time on my hands and I transcribed his with his performance off his record and I came it I came back to him a few weeks later and I played it for him and I didn't tell him where it was from and he just said oh that's very nice so that's that's my fonda fun recollection bill well I I had the experience you've had of getting to study with him I none of us really had that direct experience but I think you know when you mentioned how we were all so eager to do this I think that part of the reason is none of us respect a single guitarist alive today more than Julian bream and and it's it's not just because of his great artistry you know as a performer and of how he took the guitar from where it was at the time but if you think of all the areas that he was an innovator where he early music how he essentially started the early music craze single-handedly by starting the Julian bream concert having new pieces commissioned by the greatest composers of the day and for me like one of the most the biggest inspirations was the ensemble work he did you know Scott and I will finish the program with some duets that are from the famous tour he did with John Williams when I first heard those duet recordings it just blew my mind it was just a whole new idea about what guitar ensemble could be and I think it was one of the reasons I decided to be really involved with guitar ensemble so the lack of hesitation on at least on my part and I think I speak for everyone is because he the guitar would not be what it is today without what he did David I agree wholeheartedly I think you know if you look at every part of our repertoire he explored it Spanish music classical Renaissance everything I happen to come to the guitar from the piano and I had been playing Beethoven and Mozart and all this great repertoire and it was his LP called twentieth-century guitar that's so excited me it had some of the pieces you're gonna hear tonight it had the the nocturnal for instance in the Frank Martin and I just realized at that moment that there was a world here that I wanted to explore I'll just tell you that I first met bream after a concert when I was I was very young and very brash and I had this thing about an earlier tucking Mitsu piece called folio so I just wanted everybody to play it and I just thought it was the greatest of things so I brought it with me backstage and I said I loved your concert but you should be playing this piece and he said he said who are you and I said well I'm really nobody I'm just a student but I just love this piece and he said well actually I'm travelling around with that piece and I'm interested in it and that's when we first met him anyway and he just seemed to be open to anything that was of quality like that David koala quality is the word he is certainly my favorite guitarist of all time and that quality was felt in recordings that I heard from some of the earliest to classical guitar recordings I ever heard might hurt him in concert a number of times before I met him which was finally when it was not all that long ago actually I guess in the early 90s when Richard Rodney Bennett wrote his sonata for the guitar and Richard Rodney Bennett lives here in New York had written it for bream but bream was across the pond as it were so he asked me to do some some editing for the piece and preliminary editing and then when bream came to visit next time Richard was insistent that we meet and I was all too thrilled and so we met at Richard's apartment and and Julian was was very gentlemanly and incredibly musical and statesmen like and he invited me out to dinner afterwards we had a lovely dinner at a lovely time and I had seen him now several several times since then he's a giant not only of the guitar but of music in general he is truly a great artist Scott well I am I very clearly remember my father bringing home an LP anybody here still help LPS yeah we're we were trying to think of our favorite bream recording but they've all changed the titles you know what the rerelease is and everything but um my father bringing home to LPS one day from he was going downtown this is in Detroit and he came home and I had just really started taking classical guitar lessons seriously one of the album's and I'm sure he got them because they were in the front of the bend he didn't know the guitar at all but the first one was Julian and John the old purple LP with the very 60s psychedelic print on it and and the other one was green plays Bach and I remember looking at the Julian and John album you know Julian Julian bream and then John Williams had the long hair and the bream plays Bach album and and they had this it was on an old Westminster LP they had kind of strange ideas for covers and it had this guy with a tennis racket in a tennis shoe at a rather hairy guy but you could only see the back of his head and he had a tennis racket ended and facing him was this guy with long hair and glasses and kind of a frilly shirt with the tennis racket and it's obvious to me now that one was supposed to be Bach and one was supposed to be bream but at the time I remember looking I think I was probably 11 and I remember looking thinking who is Julian bream here is that Bremen but then I would look at the Williams bream thinking well breat Williams has the long hair so who's the guy with the long hair it was really confusing but as as they've all said for me the the key word with bream the one quality is magic there's this magical essence that he brings forth it's certainly evident in his recordings and in his concerts too when he would swagger out on stage and and just sit down and start playing these moments of magic would happen and and I've tried all my life to really get that I'm still trying probably will always try there's that bream magic you know so anyway there I could go on and on but really it was the first albums that I had thank you I'm I I'm gonna tell him of the story you're probably wondering what this beautiful bag is here um I had the honor of patchouli to bring him up from his hotel I think in 1992 or something and take him to the daddario factory great to dario strings and then to the airport so i arrived at the hotel and i'm I'm so nervous I'm so freaked I'm just so freaked that I'm gonna like drive Julian bream and so first of all I get to the hotel and it's in Midtown it's the Warwick or something I can't quite remember they anyway so it's like if in the 40s and I arrived and he's sort of sort of just got up and he said but bill you can do a much better imitation but you know basically come back in an hour okay so I drive around town and I'm you know for an hour then I come back and pick him up he finally comes in the car and we drive out to Long Island and it starts to rain crazy rain and then I realize I don't know how to get to the dew Dario's like something happens when I go to Long Island it's just the roads change everything changes for me when I tried to one so now I'm driving my hero to this place I don't even know where I'm going uh I I get out of the car and and I go into a McDonald's and to call my friend jim says you know I think I'm in the right Road McDonald's doesn't have a phone I have to go to Burger King to another place and meanwhile Julian is just walking around totally fine with everything and I'm just you know completely a mess so finally we go to the dare we make it to the dario's and now I drive him to the airport and which was harrowing it was just so much rain and we're talking and I just started at that time to love wine and you know not that I love it now but um and so start sayin see you don't understand from your book he's wrote the greatest book you know on the road life on the road just incredible book and I mentioned the wine cellar so he says well you know Benham I'm really kind of burdened because someone gave me this bottle of wine I hope person that gave it to him is not in the audience tonight anyway and I really you know just don't want to take this around with me and would you just keep it for me until I come back to town and it's it's a 1974 for truce palm roll I Got News for you this is a very good wine anyway so what now I got this wine bottle of Julian Bream's this think I knew it was an incredible bottle so year after year he would come and I'd go see him play and he'd say no no you know I'm sorry I can't see you now and and and I I even remember John Williams being my apartment say John you know you're a good friend he says can we just drink this because I don't really have a wine cellar I'm just flip that it's gonna turn it to vinegar so finally I go to see Julian at the Manhattan School and he's teaching a master class and he's getting in the cabinet Julia what am I gonna do with this one he says you know Ben just drink it with someone you love and think of me so the people that I drank it with are right in this right in that row Joe and Marilyn Schwartz and I pretty much knew they'd be here and Joe and Marilyn and my wife free and I drank this bottle and and and we did think of Julie so that's why so I want to move on and sort of go into further detail which has been slightly mentioned by everybody and just ask people to be very specific about qualities of Julian's musicianship sand guitar playing that really have influenced you or perhaps in other pieces you've but maybe not just even the repertoire that he actually played but as we've mentioned this was a man started his early music he commissioned pieces he had an extraordinary range of color and articulation his fingerings it goes the the list goes as Scott mentioned his incredible stage presence you know so there are so many aspects to to his as a performer in a musician so if any specifically though if you a few things that you might want to share I'll just start with with fret well the thing that stands out for me is his incredible rhythmic drive and rhythmic energy and vitality and that he infuses that in every style of music the other thing is his enormous range of tone colors and he could get the most exquisitely beautiful sound but he's got the best ponticello I've ever heard and also he would always talk about the architecture of a piece and when I was studying with him I had no idea what he was talking about whatsoever but over time I came to realize that he saw things in a very big way and that when you were really required as a musician to tie things in and not just look at one section or another but to have a large view of the whole thing and I think this was he was a real visionary in that way bill I was going to talk about color too I'm sorry no but that's how can you not talk about color because you know I think many people when they just think about guitar it well it's sort of a monochromatic thing you just sort of strum around and he it really is a complete Orchestra when he's playing but I the only thing I would add to to your comments for me is his ability to sort of get at the heart of what the piece is about and to unabashedly communicate it to an audience and you know I think he wasn't one of those performers who sort of hid behind this sort of veneer of formalism and and put a barrier between himself in the audience but he he laid it all out there and in you know good and bad you know and and but it was always expressive there was always something very personal that he was sharing with the audience with every performance I would add to that that there's a kind of freshness to his playing that stayed there through the years and in interviews he talked about the fact that he really got away from the guitar and recharged his batteries something that I think a lot of us of this generation have a hard time doing we all teach and we travel around and we do all our stuff but he is a Master Gardener he just does other things and he never really had a regular teaching job and so I think he was able to maintain a real kind of freshness to his playing throughout decades everything everybody said so far the the thing about Bream is that everything that's wonderful about his playing is so wonderful and it's so colorful that it's very easy really to talk about it I would add to these things that he has an impeccable taste in everything impeccable and he also has an overarching sense of spirituality or a belief in a higher power that that you may only sense or feel in some way from his performances when you speak to him you really or when you hear him speak even in public you you you get that and I think that infuses everything he does with tremendous authenticity and again a spirituality that is really quite powerful I think I could go on but let me pass along well I think they've about said everything I mean I I was also gonna mention color tone colors Tambor's that he got out of the instrument nobody ever really I've heard from then until now has really succeeded in in in even exploring what he did certainly have tried but you know there's still and again the freshness that you mentioned that that's one thing I always got I was fortunate enough to see it many times in concert and of course I have all those albums that have been listened to thousands of times probably by now and and you know they never get tired they never get I never get bored of them you know some recordings you you you hear and you think okay well I heard that been there done that and I can always go back and listen to something of his and really get something new out of it it's it's it's pretty incredible there are very few musicians like that so it's it's interesting well I will just add one thing that was so inspirational to me I know for all of us was just his unrelenting devotion to new music and that every year I would see him I'll never forget him doing the royal winter music which David champions and you know people it was tough it was a lot to listen to and he put the music Adam you know on the on the on the piano bench for all this music in front of him and just went through this music with everything he had you know at the edge of his seat and it was exhilarating to know that every year you were gonna hear a new work you just knew it and that really influenced me tremendously in in in commissioning people from from the time I began to play the guitar but but we've met we've mentioned the word color a lot one of the things I think is interesting to do or do you all feel influenced by his choice of guitars because Fred he did have guitar makers actually live on his property right does anybody want to say something about his choice of instruments and well he tended to favor spruce top guitars and guitars that were very kind of crystalline the model being the Hauser guitars and Houser replicas he did experiment he was always open to things and if from time to time he'd bring seem playing a Ramirez or you know you'd see him playing Spanish guitars it's certainly in in my own trying to duplicate or imitate I should say his sound I tended to go for guitars that were more along the lines that he was playing yeah anybody else want to say anything about his instruments I would just say that I was influenced by the fact that he found the right guitars for him yeah I wanted to do that for myself not to find his guitars but mine right right it's it's another sort of part of his his innovative personality that we sort of forget is that he would just encourage these guitar makers to make guitars for him well we're running short as I knew I knew we would but but we have time for one a couple of more quick questions we have mentioned recordings but I did want to say ask each person you know if you had to tell your students to to listen to say a performance or a record we've mentioned a couple but what a couple of Records that you would say I absolutely can't you know desert island dream dream Breen tunes well I think we all agree 20th century guitar is this late 20th century get development but past that I have to say I'm particularly fond of baroque guitar now if you can find it you know but what pieces were on that the Vice passacaglia among others I mean it's one that comes from I think the vibe oh also the devdays ever say sweet yeah yeah go ahead Malcolm Arnold guitar key oh yeah Malcolm art if you if you if you don't understand this just yell to will yell them out the Malcolm Malcolm Arnold you're gonna be tested on this by the way when you a new leaf so there's a little questionnaire a we were mentioning that CDs the repackaging may have different titles but there was an old LP called the wood so wild oh yes little picture of him by the you know near the woods so wild but upon their love that cover Scott yeah it's clear but that's a good cover that was a good cover yeah yeah good cover and and I was in in and you know listening to his recordings basically and I was a kid you know I I did judge books by their covers you know this looks like a good record cuz it looks really good and so that looked really good except the Bach and Julian bream record but for me it was you know obviously the contemporary music but as a kid listening to this I was just so impressed with his classical music the DIA beli Giuliani grand overture which I one of the pieces I learned when I was a kid because I heard him play it and and the DIA Belly Sonata which of course he kind of pieced together from different sort is just math-amazing man that's another great I'm sorry David well actually I will just say that 20th century guitar album is the one for me but I I should really add a little bit to the talk about the composers that he commissioned and went after because if you just think about some of the names of the people that he went after to write from the Attar first he went into england into his own country and he got Benjamin Britten William Walton Richard Rodney Bennett Lennox Barclay Michael tippet Maxwell Davies Thank You Alan Ross thorne and then he went abroad and he went to Huntsville Henson toru takemitsu and he tried to be told with the slovsky's tried Ligety Vince keys you got to buy that DVD you have to buy this this great amazing benefit the more time absolutely absent Stu but but you were gonna say there's two recordings we haven't mentioned one is better landmark I think one is the Julian bream concert because when that came out it was just like no one had ever heard Luke playing like that before right the other recording that I think is astounding is the recording made with George Malcolm of Bach trio sonatas and Duvall deviousness I'm with Scott I heard there was another thing you know you heard the deer belly and you think you want to play that so then you go and and I remember thinking well you know Julian he messed with it once I found out like you found out that he actually put different movements together then you go and buy the DIA belly right and you please you know maybe they had something it's like the best arranger is like incredible that he would just say well this is what I'm gonna do you know I'm just gonna do what I want to do and I'm gonna sorry deep bellowing well we haven't even mentioned his commitment to Spanish music yes which was vast I mean just a survey of almost everything and we also didn't mention songs of the Chinese songs of the Chinese you know and his collaboration with people Britain and Peter parents Peter peers yeah yes incredible well I'm afraid we're done we are gonna come back I think we're gonna wait do we have something to do tonight this stuff you're gonna go home yeah I got stuff I got stuff I got to do I don't know stuff anyway we have one question quick does anybody know what happened to the Rosa gastein house or that Julian has last time he played in the United States he was playing on it that's right yeah he just a bug that's mine a buddy of mine bought his loot the loot that he plays duet with himself on that video and and yeah and he he thought this is the coolest thing I've got Julian Bream's loot you know and I think he meant L oo t I think that's what he was okay well thank you thank you gentlemen and thank you very much and we'll we will be back you'll be back you

Channel: 92nd Street Y

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Keywords: 92Y, 92nd Street Y, Benjamin Verdery, Guitar Talks, Julian Bream (Composer), Guitar (Musical Instrument), Guitarist (Profession)

Id: Y93Ho_G9Ktg

Length: 24min 46sec (1486 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 20 2015