“Worth Repeating” is a weekly feature on the EngAGE Blog that will bring you previous posts that we think are still timely, interesting, or just plain fun! From 1/28/15:
Although an injury forced Julian Bream, Britain’s greatest virtuoso of guitar and lute, to stop playing two years ago, he reflects on his long career with satisfaction:
“There’s nothing sad about not playing any more,” says Bream, who turned 80 in July. But in the next breath he adds: “The thing I feel a little annoyed about is that I know I’m a better musician than I was at 70, but I can’t prove it. . . .
“I devoted my life to music for a reason,” he says, “and the reason wasn’t because I wanted to get on or make money, but to try to fulfill myself and also to give people pleasure. That’s been my credo. . . .
“The last 10 years of my life, from 70 to 80, have been the most interesting because I have only done what I wanted to do. I have cut away what I call the excess stuff in my life. I’m quite reflective – I listen to music, I read, I walk with [his retriever] Django.”
The 43-disc Julian Bream Collection was released in September by Sony. He was awarded the Gramophone lifetime achievement award on 17 September. Details: gramophone.co.uk. Read the entire article about Julian Bream here and enjoy the links to some samples of his beautiful recordings. You can find more on YouTube, including J.S. Bach’s Violin Sonata fugue.
