Admirers of the guitarist and lutenist will recognise these recordings
from the voluminous RCA Julian Bream Edition. To have a distillation
of that magnificent traversal is a pleasure, ranging as it does
over a twenty-year plus period and covering the Iberian Baroque
and Spanish repertoire. In particular readers will probably remember
Bream’s The Guitar in Spain; Guitarra album with its clever
and wide-ranging mix of Milán and Rodrigo, Mudarra and Sor, Boccherini
(an honorary Iberian in this context) and Narváez.
Bream evokes the
sound of the Renaissance guitar in many of these early Spanish
works, not least Milán, Mudarra and Narváez – he actually plays
lute on the first volume, the only occasion in this six disc
set that he does so – before exploring the world of the Baroque
guitar and its discernable difference from its predecessor.
What remained essentially unchanged in Spanish music was a yen
for variational form and this crops up throughout the set.
He evokes the full
panoply of elegance and poignancy in the selection from El
Maestro. There’s the stately nobility of Fantasia VIII and
elsewhere a remarkable control of nuance and colour. In his
sequence from Los seys libros del Delphin de Musica –
there is at least one example from each book – we can but admire
the gravity and control of the Fantasia from Book II , with
its telling colouration in the lower strings, just as much as
the beautifully timed runs of the Book V Ya se asiente el
Rey Ramiro, with “noises off” from the shifts kept to a
bare minimum.
Bream takes Sor’s long third movement variations
at full value in his three movement Opp. 7, 9 and 30 (it’s a
feature of this set that repertoire repetition is kept to a
minimum though there is some with Sor). He makes great play
of witty caesuri in the rippling opening Largo of the Op.7 Fantasie,
vests the opening of the Mozart variations with dramatic arpeggios
and does wondrous things with the three Pieces for guitar, an
unassuming title if ever there was one, by Dionisio Aguado.
In Bream’s hands they have jewel-like brilliance and ornamental
colour and in the case of the Introduction and Rondo, a fulsome
panoply of virtuosic demands, all of which Bream tosses off
seemingly dispassionately.
The third volume
is given over to Granados and Albéniz in Bream’s own now famed
arrangements. La Maja de Goya (Tonadilla) is tremendously
evocative, laced with the most buoyant of rhythm and constantly
ear catching. Then there’s the melancholy veil that hangs over
the Villanesca No.4 or, in contrast and despite its name,
the extrovert Valses Poeticos with its luscious central
panel. It’s enjoyable to hear Andaluza in something other than
the Kreisler arrangement for violin and more then exciting to
hear how Bream brings out the florid drama of Albéniz’s Cataluña,
from the Suite española.
Volume Four brings
us some authentic scions of the Spanish guitar school and their
allies. The dusky and sinuous Marieta of Tárrega is one
of the highlights of this volume though no one will want to
miss Recuerdos de la Alhambra.
The fifth volume is closely allied to the
first, even down to some duplication. I should add that RCA’s
recording documentation is not the easiest to decipher and you
will occasionally wonder, as I did, whether a set was recorded
in 1964, say, or 1983 and in this context which came first –
volume one or five (the answer here is volume one). Here he
reprises his elevated skill as an interpreter of the Renaissance
Iberian muse but there are also a few surprises, such as the
multi-tracked Boccherini. The big Sor Grand Solo is played with
enviable command and commanding elegance whilst the constant
demands of the Rondo by Aguado are sumptuously met. The Sor
Mozart Variations and the Op.7 Fantasie can be judged against
the recordings of them on the second volume though one should
note that RCA’s documentation leads one to believe that the
re-make of Op.7 is here presented in its entirety – whereas
only the opening movement is.
Finally we have the Rodrigo disc. Bream made
multiple recordings of Concierto de Aranjuez and
Fantasia para un Gentilhombre. For the latter he is accompanied
by Leo Brouwer, whose concerto he successfully played and recorded
(though not here). The stylistic acumen of the playing is self-evident,
with tempos for the most part relaxed. In the Concierto he was
joined by the then seemingly unlikely figure of John Eliot Gardiner
(for his last recording he joined Simon Rattle) and they collaborate
in a winningly noble reading, spacious and evocative.
Though the recording locations and dates
make for a disparate collection, and though there is some overlap
between discs, this is a self-recommending set, especially for
those who didn’t collect the RCA Bream Edition. Performances
are consistently elevated, the music making revealing of his
fluid and technically impeccable command, and the colourful
expressivity of his playing lends distinction and interest to
everything he plays.
Jonathan Woolf
Julian Bream (guitar, lute)
