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Catching Up With Julian Legendary Master Looks Back
Catching Up With Julian Legendary Master Looks Back
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There are two versions of the Quatre pieces brves, arent there?
There are actually three versions: there is the original guitar version, the piano version and the orchestral version.
Was the guitar version written for you?
No, the guitar version was done for Segovia, but if you know the pieces, you dont have to be told that Segovia didnt want to play them! And
he didnt. There is a marvelous story: Segovia lived in Geneva for quite some time and I think so did Frank Martin. I think they were both
walking along a main road in Geneva, on the same side of the pavement, and they were walking towards each other. And suddenly, it was all
too much for Segovia and so he was forced embarrassingly to cross the road to the other side. I was told that by Frank Martin himself.
Was Frank Martin excited that you would be playing them?
I think so, because nobody played these pieces at all and I actually saw the pieces in 1957; Karl Scheit had the manuscript to edit for
publication and he showed me the work before he had edited it. So I played them through at his place in Vienna. In those days I used to sightread almost better than I could play. So I could almost sight-read those pieces. It isnt the case now! I used to be good at that. I think the
reason being that over the years when I was quite young, I did so many orchestral film sessions and you really have to read at sight pretty
much and then record. There has always been a weakness associated with guitarists that they are very reticent about reading music at sight
and it just so happened that I was very good at it, so naturally I always got the job.
It was an issue style for Segovia I imagine, but also so many people wrote pieces for him that in some respects, it would have been almost
impossible for one person to premire that quantity of pieces. Do you think that, or am I being too kind?
No, kindness is a perfectly reasonable sentiment in this matter, but I think he only played really what he wanted to play. He never did
something in an idealistic way, that is to say, that it ought to be heard. In other words he was only interested in what he could do and make
effective. What would have been the point in him playing something that he didnt like? It would have never worked, would it?
You included Drei Tentos from Kammermusik 1958 on the 20th Century Guitar recording; did you meet up with Henze before that?
I had known Henze some years before that because I used to see him sometimes in Italy; he was a great friend of Willy Waltons and I used to
see them together on the island of Ischia, where Walton lived and actually where Hans Werner Henze lived but only for a little while.
You performed in the premiere of Kammermusik1958. How was that?
Well, it was pretty chaotic because it was difficult. It was not only that the singing part was difficult and the guitar part was stretching my
capabilities a fair amount, it was simply the ensemble music and bringing all the things together with the small chamber group of instruments
has never been my strong point. Ive never been good at time. Im all right on my own, but not necessarily with a small group of instruments,
and for that reason I felt rather sad that I didnt play for the first performance of Le marteau sans matre by Pierre Boulez. It wasnt because I
didnt want to do it I wanted very much to do it. But I knew that the rhythm was so complicated that we would spend half of the rehearsal
time trying to get Julian Bream to play rhythmically with the other instruments. You know, rehearsal time costs money and there are many
other things that have got to be rehearsed assiduously in that piece, so I didnt want them to go through that embarrassment because of my
inadequacies. So I didnt do it.
What did you think about Henzes writing at that stage? Obviously you were attracted by it.
Yes, I was.
And he wrote The Royal Winter Music for you.
Thats right, but that was much later.
It was much later, but that is complex too!
Yes, I know, but its an entirely different piece and his language became more complex, particularly harmonically. It was much more
complex then, than in Kammermusik 1958. Kammermusik 1958 was, for Henze even, a pretty way-out number. I think one of the reasons for
that is that he was very much involved with the Darmstadt School and I think some of the people that ran the Darmstadt School slightly
disapproved of Henze because there was an occasional major chord or something of that nature and you werent allowed to do that.
Yes, too retro.
Oh, God, yes, you could be put in prison for that!
Although you didnt play in the first performance of Pierre Boulezs Le marteau sans matre, you have tried to get a solo work from him,
havent you?
Well, I did and I didnt. Finally I think I failed miserably.
Its never too late.
It is, Im afraid. I suspect that he is now contentrevising some of his earlier pieces. I have also managedmore recently to mentally grasp a lot
of hismusic, whereas 20 years ago I was somewhat confusedby it. There are still moments of bewilderment,but it doesnt matter. The true
essence of music inmy opinion is not always about rational comprehension.
Were there more pieces to come from Frank Martin?
Well, I did ask him to write something else for the Lucerne festival in Switzerland, where I met him on one occasion.
Was it a festival that you had played at?
Yes, I played there, but then he died suddenly, and his new piece for the guitar never quite materialized. Though previously I had visited him
in Holland and I had the opportunity to look over a piece he had written for a New York commission, which was for voice and several
instruments, and one of those instruments was the electric guitar. He asked me to examine the part for its playability, which I did; it was very
well written and he understood the electric guitar as a musical instrument very well indeed. It was marvelous that someone of his age he
must have been 80 was writing for the first time in his life for the electric guitar. It shows a bit of spunk, doesnt it?
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But he did admire you greatly. So Olga Coelho says in her interview; she says how he really admired your technique.
Does she? But my technique was atrocious.
But what you could achieve with it, was what he was referring to it was the music you were producing.
I think it might have been my musicality. On the other hand, I wasnt that good but I had promise and a different type of promise to the gifts
that Segovia had developed. I played in a very different way.
Its funny that you and John Williams seemed to appear at the same time but up until that time, I dont think Segovia had any serious
competitors.
I dont think he did, no. Although I think before the war that Llobet was probably a challenge of sorts, but he didnt really have anybody. He
was the first really international guitarist; the others played in different countries but he was really international. For instance, he was playing
in Russia in the 1920s, andall over South America. So his career was unusually developed and what he did was truly remarkable.
His stamina was incredible; travelling nowadays is exhausting but in his day was much more demanding. There werent many people at that
time that could manage such a schedule.
There was nobody certainly on the guitar.
You played Villa-Lobos Studies for him. Was he specific about what he wanted?
Yes, he was. I could understand what Villa-Lobos wanted, but there were different ways of achieving it. When I was playing, he used to
wrench the guitar from me and play and show me how he wanted things done. I thought that was quite remarkable because he probably
hadnt touched a guitar for years and years. He knew exactly what he wanted and I admired him greatly for that. When I look back at that
meeting that we had when I played to him, I got the feeling that I played his music in a very European way, not Brazilian. His musical
background and what he wanted from music was something quite different, and not necessarily European. The forms that he used sometimes
were European, but the essence of the music and his musical ideas were anything but European and therefore a lot of European critics have
been very critical of his music, simply because in a sense they dont realize that he is not a European; that he is Brazilian and from another
hemisphere.
But Villa-Lobos did write some great pieces.
Well, some of the Studies are indeed very fine music. But it may be an interesting idea that Villa-Lobos was perhaps very much influenced by
Mauro Giuliani and the nineteenth-century school of guitar playing. I dont think he was so interested or into the Trrega school of playing;
he was I think very much more of an old classical player, and that would have been rather irritating for Segovia because I dont think Segovia
had much respect for the old Italian school of guitar playing. And I have to confess that it had its limitations, but it also had its virtues. You
can hear in Villa-Lobos that so much of his music for the guitar is influenced by that old style.
Jumping to the present, you have commissioned a new sonata from Leo Brouwer. He is more European, but still has strong Cuban elements.
His music inhabits very strong elements of his Cuban background, but it is a fine combination. I find that his folk music element and his more
serious art music idiom is very well integrated in a natural and stimulating way.
The first sonata was written for you. When you commissioned it from Brouwer, did you give him any specifications in the style of those you
gave to Henze?
No, I didnt. The reason I thought he would write agood sonata is that hed written me a concerto andthe first movement was in sonata form
and Ithought he had handled the discipline very adroitly.I thought at the time that a solo sonata, with theskills that he had shown working in
sonata form,would augur well for his new guitar piece.
Did you have to change the fingering?
No, everything was beautifully fingered; I did in fact amend a couple of fingerings and I did change one chord, I seem to remember, but apart
from that nothing else.
Have you played through the new sonata, which is about to be premired, No. 5?
No, I havent because I cant play anymore. Due to an injury to my left hand, I havent played a piece of music on the guitar for three years.
The Julian Bream Trust is doing fine work. Are you happy with how it is going?
Yes, sponsoring students and new music, together with concerts of a somewhat eclectic nature.
How do you choose the students?
They come and play for me.
Just like the Royal Academy of Musics Julian Bream Prize, which has always been adjudicated by you.
I suspect I am a hands-on guy!
And thats what makes it so special: the Julian Bream seal of approval! Have you got any more commissions coming?
I have. Ive got two in the pipeline: ones from a foreign composer and one from an English composer.
All solo repertoire?
Yes, solo repertoire. You see, my idea, which I hope will work out, is that the students that we help in terms of their musical education, will
hopefully havethe innate ability to do the first performances of these pieces.
So you particularly want the students to do the premieres? Thats quite scary, isnt it?
Well, they have got to get used to that. Playing contemporary music is never exactly a piece of cake. There are often problems to solve that
require some far-reaching decisions and conclusions.
Yes, but premiring a Brouwer and Harrison Birtwistle piece inone concert is going to be a big thing for Andrey Lebedev.
Well, maybe it is, but a really good performer should be able to do that at the age of 23. If they cant, theyll never do it. Andrey is a very
accomplished player and technically very sound. He is also a nice chap. Hes not at all impetuous or pushy, like many of his contemporaries
these days. He has charm, and I like people with charm; I know it may sound superficial, but its the lubrication that makes the world go
around.
http://classicalguitarmagazine.com/catching-up-with-julian-bream-the-legendary-mast... 15/12/2014
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Thank you for this - I'm making it required reading for all my classical students!
Reply Like
2 December 12 at 8:05pm
Just to set the record straight, Julian Bream says he has never played at a guitar festival. That is not
true. He played at the Guitar Foundation of America festival when it was in Akron, Ohio in 1988. It was
a major feather in the cap of festival director Stephen Aron.
Reply Like
1 Yesterday at 5:53am
He is an inspiration! - Such clarity and thought - what a pity about his hand, I have also injured my hand
and I sympathise.
Reply Like
1 December 12 at 9:00pm
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