​JulianBreamGuitar.com

We then at my instigation filmed at the Snape Maltings in Aldeburgh and the Red House (Britten’s last home) . I found the manuscript of Nocturnal in the Red House library and shared that with Bream. (this is a special feature on the DVD version of my film). It was fascinating to discuss the ‘impossible’ aspects of the score.

Any detailed stories of on-location filming? Stories in relation to Bream himself, guitar issues, location.

Despite having a toe amputated prior to filming Julian really wanted a last take on Nocturnal. I bought him the soft black slippers you see him wearing in the filming, as he couldn’t get shoes on his painful feet.

A final note from Paul Balmer

If a broadcaster could be persuaded to come aboard I would be prepared to make short copyright compliant versions of both films which might entice true music lovers to seek out the full versions. I don’t personally however have the health or energy at 73 to pursue this bureaucratic labyrinth.

In practical terms I have recently at my own expense repaired the copy master of the Bream film as the DIGITAL tape is starting to break down.  I therefore have a DIGITAL .mov file for posterity. I hope AVIE have kept the original master and rushes in a safe environment. As you may know, most of the 20th century's film archive has already been lost due to fragile storage media.

Looking to the future, it was finding a Baroque guitar and Renaissance guitar in Julian’s bathroom that prompted my renewed interest in the history of the guitar and led directly to ‘GuitarStory’ - my new series of films available FREE at www.musiconearth.co.uk. This episodic series aims to illustrate the evolution of the guitar from hunting bow or Berimbau to its current glory. 10 episodes in the can, 20 more to come!

Paul Balmer August 2024

www.julianbreamguitar.com

William Chávez © 2024

Do not reprint without permission

Paul directing Stephane at his Paris home.

Courtesy of Music on Earth Productions.

Paul drumming through Merseybeat’ Liverpool 1963.

Courtesy of Music on Earth Productions.

I went from reading nursery rhymes to performing Vivaldi concertos in 3 years (I lost the power of speech as I was too busy practicing guitar, piano, percussion and theory eight hours a day). I survived on dry bread and cheese and paid for this by drumming in a working men’s club two nights a week – 4 hours on stage each night. I backed comedians like Tom O’Connor and singers like Engelbert Humperdinck – all in ‘a Hard Day’s Night’ as Ringo remarked (we both hail from Liverpool’s ‘Dingle docks’. )

Brendan sent me to Bream and John Williams and Segovia. Williams and Segovia showed up, Bream didn’t.

The next questions will also include Segovia because I am sure they were both a source of inspiration in the beginning.

When did you first become aware of Bream and Segovia? A recording or concert?

At school we had one precious Segovia 33rpm vinyl, which we passed around all the keen guitar players. I loved Segovia’s sound which seemed unworldly, profound but also very distant from my council estate – like a dream. I first heard Bream when my school music teacher Dy Swindlehurst loaned me a copy of Concierto de Aranjuez.

Much later in 1972, Brendan sent me to meet Andres Segovia. He wasn’t playing well due to age and infirmity. He knew it and I knew it, but the audience for his gigs just applauded his age and huge legacy. I’m glad we met; he opened so many doors for the guitar. He signed a portrait for me which I treasure.

When did you first meet all of them? Also, did you have much of a taste for John Williams’ approach to music?

Brendan sent me to meet John Williams at Lancaster University. He sat down with his Ignacio Fleta guitar and literally blew me out of my chair – where was all this sound coming from? I ventured some of his tempos were ‘unusual’ and he listened with interest!

My right hand was badly injured in an accident in 1973, and I had to seek another career.

Leaving college in ’74, I trained at the BBC as a tea boy, sound engineer, cameraman, radio producer and TV director – 17 glorious years meeting and working with everybody from Stephane Grappelli, Kate Bush and U2, to Vladimir Ashkenazy and Victoria de los Angeles.

I met John Williams again many times whilst working at the BBC in the 70’s. We got on well and he gave me signed copies of his ‘Sky’ albums – I recorded him for BBC TV and also BBC Radio. He later loved the Bream DVD and bought many copies for his friends. At one BBC TV recording he thought it important to play Bach with ‘cojones’. I agreed. The BBC presenters were perplexed.

My first engagement with film was as a composer. I wrote three BBC soundtracks which all featured guitar during 1975.

When did you first meet or see Julian Bream in person? What do you remember about it?

I had seen Julian in ‘The five faces of the Guitar’ a fabulous BBC programme with John Renbourn, Barney Kessel, Paco Peña and Jeff Beck (BBC2). I was impressed by Bream’s openness to other guitar music. The Bach interlude in Julian Bream: My Life in Music is sourced from that session. I had also seen Julian in concert at Birmingham Town Hall.

Paul meets Julian

Was your first meeting many years before making the DVD documentary?

I first met Julian properly at the BAFTA premiere of my ‘Stephane Grappelli’ film. He loved this and asked if I could direct his story on film? I took several nanoseconds to accept the challenge. He insisted I also narrate his film. I was pleased when my BBC mentor Sir David Attenborough declared the film ‘Masterful’.

Did you ever write  or create any content about Bream before the DVD documentary?

Yes, we did some trial filming to get Julian into the process, this went well, but was mostly quite informal.

Bream in Retirement

When did Bream first approach you about the documentary? Do you recall the date? What compelled you to go forward with the Bream project?                                                        

Paul playing at the BAFTA premiere of Grappelli 19th Feb (Getty images).

Courtesy of Music on Earth Productions.

What do you remember about the filming period, positive and not-so-positive?

 The filming at Semley was very intense – Julian spoke expansively for 2 days, as a guitarist, I was well researched on the questions – I then had a mammoth editing task reducing this to 2 hours.

Judy and I discovered his ‘table tennis room’ and we evicted all the spiders and prepared the room as a setting for the Sor 'B minor study' in Julian Bream: My Life in Music. Julian had a lot of trouble with strings and Brendan and I did a lot of ‘guitar tech’ work.

He gave everything to that performance. He was meticulous doing retake after retake. Another mammoth editing job for myself and sound supervisor Tony Wass. My son Jon Paul became Julian’s ‘minder’ as he was very frail. Cameramen Robert Foster and Nick Squires gave everything to catching every nuance of Julian’s performance ‘in vision’. Julian loved Tony Wass’s recording skills and wanted to go back and re-record everything he knew!

Julian used burnished fifth and fourth strings to enable a smooth ‘squeak free’ portamento in Nocturnal.

I filmed Nocturnal and de Falla’s  ‘Homenaje’ on 2 close up synced cameras to ensure a lasting ‘live’ recording of Julian’s highly unconventional technique –  a permanent record for posterity. For me this felt like a duty as a guitar student in the school of Francisco Tárrega – I was passing on a message.

Julian signed my copy of Nocturnal at Britten’s desk in the Red House and wished me luck with the edit!

How would you describe your experience with Bream before starting the documentary, during and after?

I enjoyed the time at Broad Oak. Together with much help from Judy Caine we trawled the world’s libraries for his back catalogue of film and video looking for his best performances – they are all on the DVD. He chose what he felt was his best work over a long career. A special thank you is due to my producer Judy Caine, without whom this film could never have been made! She did all the legal clearances for the archive, booked the crews and arranged the venues – a world class producer.

How close did you remain with Bream once the documentary was done? Did you see or speak to him frequently?

I spoke to Julian a few times on the telephone after the film. He was in a lot of pain with gout and increasingly a recluse. I’m glad he was proud of the film. He was a difficult man but also a genius so I’m able to forgive him for not allowing me to attend the film's London award ceremony - ‘GRAMOPHONE’ DVD of the year' (2007). I have never actually seen the award. (ed. This award is part of The Julian Bream Room exhibit at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance)

Did you ever speak to him once he moved out of Broad Oak?

Yes, but only once – the Augustine estate wanted their Hauser back! They didn’t have his new address.

Did your relationship with Bream turn into a friendship, or did it remain strictly professional? What do you remember with your time with him at Semley?

Bream was hard to reach as a person. Judy Caine and I stayed at Semley and I taught him to poach eggs on his AGA stove. We filmed him in the garden and discussed wine (he had a fabulous cellar.) He thought it impossible to make a working vihuela (he’d tried with José Romanillos). Some scoundrel sold him a large 4;3 TV and he was mystified by the 16;9 ratio of his film. He eventually realised he had been conned by the local TV shop. I now have a lovely working vihuela which I recently filmed for ‘GuitarStory’ – I think Julian would be pleased.

Sir David Attenborough granted me permission to use the ‘Music On Earth’ name for our productions – he loves the films.

Courtesy of Music on Earth Productions.

BALMER ON BREAM

A little history on Paul

Can you tell me a little about yourself before your association with Julian Bream?

My grandparents came over from Ireland in the early 20th century and were described in the census of 1911 as ‘Music Hall artistes’. I was born in Liverpool, England in 1951. We lived on the docks, over a fish and chip shop. My father was a dance band drummer in the 1940s and my mum played the piano as a young girl – neither played professionally. Starting aged 10 we all worked in the ‘chippy’.

When did you first show any interest in music? Was your family musical in any way?

I played drums for the Boy Scouts (the youth organization) in the late 1950’s. My dad managed pop groups in the Merseybeat era 1960 -67. When one of his ‘Beat Group’ drummers failed to show up, I found myself onstage at The Aintree Institute age 11 in 1962. Another local beat group The Beatles were playing the same venue the week before. Somebody said 'The Beatles were better than The Shadows' – this seemed highly implausible at the time! At the end of my first gig the band, The Neons, asked me to join permanently, and I then played drums semi pro from 1962 to 1974. 

The table tennis room (at Broad Oak, Semley) duly cleared for filming. In preparation for Sor's "B minor study.

Courtesy of Music on Earth Productions.

Did classical guitar come before other forms of guitar playing?

I learned Irish folk guitar from a teacher at school who offered guitar lessons when the art classes were oversubscribed. I also bought a ’62 Fender Stratocaster from my woodwork teacher for £60. I took the faulty guitar apart, wrote personally to Leo Fender who replied and together we replaced all its rusty hardware. I sold the Stratocaster when the music school wouldn’t let me bring it into class. I sold the Strat for £90 and bought a Petersen classic guitar for £90 – they allowed me into class.

Did making video or photography come before the guitar and when did you start bringing them together?

 I started out as a sound recordist at school – recording school concerts and then our Merseybeat bands.

Video came into the frame when I appeared on local and network TV as a guitarist and drummer. I played on four vinyl albums before I left school.

In the beginning, what were your aspirations as a young man with the guitar and other related guitar-associated ventures such as a videographer and / or journalism?

I left school wanting to work as a sound engineer but that was deemed impossible by my career master. I became a professional rock drummer by night and took a ‘day job’ in a record store to appease my parents. They still threw me out! I slept on a friend’s floor for a while then found a house share with some students. I bought a blanket and some sheets but couldn’t afford a pillow. I slept occasionally on my guitar to avoid it being stolen.

A record shop customer (jazz drummer Ron Parry) suggested I apply to music school. I borrowed a ‘classic’ guitar, auditioned and was accepted into the Tobias Matthay school of Music Liverpool, playing classical guitar pieces I had learned ‘by ear’. I was ‘found out’ at my first lesson, but my guitar professor Brendan McCormack, a pupil of Emilio Pujol, chose to keep quiet and taught me to read music.

Paul & producer Judy Caine with the 'Gold Camera Award USA for their Grappelli film.

Courtesy of Music on Earth Productions.

Paul & Brennie

Courtesy of Music on Earth Productions.

Paul directs Julian at Snape Maltings, Aldeburgh during the filming of  Britten's Nocturnal and  Falla's 'Homenaje'.

Courtesy of Music on Earth Productions.

Julian enjoying his interview and below Brendan sorting strings before a recording.

Courtesy of Music on Earth Productions.

Brendan sorting strings before a recording.

Courtesy of Music on Earth Productions.

Paul’s working vihuela by Dan Larsen.

Courtesy of Music on Earth Productions.

Brendan McCormack with Emilio Pujols Vihuela Spain 1965.

Courtesy of McCormick Family collection.

Julian asked me on the 19th February 2002 at BAFTA, Piccadilly. I had invited esteemed director Robert Altman to the screening of my Stephane Grappelli film, but Bream showed up as well as Bert Weedon, Martin Taylor, Coleridge Goode (Django’s bass player) and John Etheridge. We all performed ‘Nuages’ together in the interval of the film. Bream left early to catch a train!

 What was his initial response to the documentary?

Bream loved his film and made all his visiting friends sit through the whole 2 hours.

What I learned from the Bream and Grappelli films and earlier from my mentor John Jeremy’s Billie Holiday film is that the best way to shine a light on musical genius is to show the musical performance ‘complete’ and surround that with the story of how it came about. Due to our copyright laws this is very expensive and thus rarely happens.

The economic solution adopted by most broadcasters is to play 20 seconds of music then talk over it. To me this is tantamount to painting a moustache on the Mona Lisa and expecting to understand Da Vinci!

You can blend words and music in an artful counterpoint, but this is very difficult and beyond the experience of many editors. You need a composer's musical training as well as editing skills – a rare cross discipline in a commercially driven world.

One last thing, Netflix has a page for people to make requests on which movies they desire to see on their platform. They encourage people to request documentaries, foreign films and low-budget movies. I also contacted Avie Records and recommended that they consider having the documentary shown on platforms such as Netflix, Amazon or Hulu (ed. This documentary, along with ¡Guitarra! A Musical Journey Through Spain,  is currently being shown unauthorized on YouTube out of licensing agreements).

Judy and I have not yet been paid a production fee for the film. We deferred this to help get the film finished before Julian’s health declined further.

The BBC, ITV, CH4 and ARTE had all turned Julian’s film down at the pre-production stage, so the budget was very limited. We made the film on a shoestring and pulled favours at every turn to make it affordable. The DVD navigation was crafted brilliantly by Marcus Hampshire – a real genius. This disc includes many wonderful ‘extras’ that I also edited. We often slept on the editing room floor working 12- and 14-hour days to get the DVD as good as possible and including every possible detail.

A Netflix or other subscription could perhaps help me get paid for an exhausting chapter of my life. Like many film-makers I gave ‘everything I know about everything’ to this project. It nearly killed me physically and mentally, but I feel it was worth it. Musical genius often goes unrecorded, and this was an opportunity to avoid that.

My solace with both the Grappelli and Bream films is that though they cost me my London house (which we sold to pay all our investors), both films reside in ‘deep storage’ at The British Library – so they will be available for all time barring an apocalypse. It’s important that civilization records its epochs, and both those musicians represent peaks of achievement in their field.

Special thanks are due to my great teacher Brendan McCormack (Brennie) who taught me a methodology and thoroughness of approach which has enabled me to do all my subsequent work. Brendan was also Julian’s ‘stand in’ guitarist at Aldeburgh as Julian was often late on set! I love Brendan’s ‘making of’ film' (ed. one of the DVD's bonus chapters under 'Guitarist's Relish - The Makers of...').

In the Frequent Characters section of this website, we focus on the many relationships Julian Bream had that helped him develop from a musical child prodigy to a legendary classical guitarist and lutenist. While Paul Balmer's relationship with Bream came after the elderly musician was in complete retirement, he is nonetheless no less important in the Julian Bream story. Often times, the stories behind the art of many great musicians and composers of the past have faded into nothingness due to poor documentation. While two books have been written about Julian Bream, along with many articles that span over seven decades, most of this material is now out of print and difficult to access. Currently, the narrated video documentary is, by far, the preferred manner in which most people will consume information. What a treasure was the result of Paul Balmer deciding to take on the challenging task of documenting Julian Bream's life, on film! With the help of Judy Caine and others, Balmer documented a musical legacy on video, with events largely related by the artist himself that prior had been relegated to short BBC video clips: Julian Bream: My Life in Music.

I had been communicating with Paul for some time due to my interest in his work on the Bream documentary and we had agreed to meet in England at some point when our schedules permitted. On one of my trips to London several years ago, Paul was scheduled to view an evening film premiere in London but he planned to arrive at the newly renovated BAFTA building in the late morning. Initially, he only promised me about an hour of his time but we got along so famously that we just kept talking and ordered coffee, tea and cakes at the beautifully renovated lounge. He then gave me a tour of the new BAFTA building while he continued telling me Bream stories. Even the stories that sounded like they might have been a dramatic situation many years prior had become humorous with the passage of time. Every now and again he would say "you can't put this one on the website". That always made me smile. Soon it was lunch time and he enthusiastically said "sure lets' go!" We talked about all things guitar from Bream to Peter Green (the famous Fleetwood Mac guitarist). We then continued to walk and talk through stores and the London sidewalks until it was time for him to head out to the film premiere. After a few years had gone by, I had forgotten what stories I could tell and which ones I could not. I had not taken a tape recorder because I didn't want to make him feel the dark cloud that tends to loom over a conversation when the tape is rolling. Last year I wrote him and sent a stack of questions based on most of the things we talked about and I let him pick which ones he wanted to answer. He not only answered a good portion of the questions thoroughly but he also included all these fabulous pictures and indicated where he thinks they should be placed throughout this interview.

Paul, Thank you!!

Was there ever an official screening for the documentary? How many times, if ever, was the film seen in theatres? I think you mentioned you were trying to get the film shown recently in a theatre by your home.

Julian didn’t want a launch for his film – which was a pity.

The Bream film has been screened theatrically at the SAVOY cinema Corby in 2023 with a Q&A  with Carlos Bonell and myself. There has also been a private film club screening in Oundle in 2024.

I have seen the documentary release with two different covers. I have the blue cover with the head profile but I have also seen the one with the red cover. Which one was on the official DVD release of the documentary?

Initially the DVD was released by our company  ‘Music on Earth’ (the red cover). Avie records took over distribution and changed the cover to blue. The disc is identical.

I think you stated that Bream used the Rose Augustine Hauser for the filming, is that correct? Was there a back-up guitar? Did he ever use a Gary Southwell guitar or did he at least bring it as backup?

Julian tried several times to commission successful copies of the wonderful ‘Augustine’ Hauser. He was never completely happy however and used the original guitar for all our recordings. There was no ‘standby’ guitar.

How would you compare it to your Stephane Grappelli project?

Due to age and infirmity, Stephane’s film was largely confined to an interview at his Paris home. I was determined to get Julian ‘out and about’ in his chosen surroundings, which I think added to a broader sense of his personality. Also, Aldeburgh was so important to the sound of Nocturnal. This is partly filmed from Benjamin Britten's box at Snape Maltings in Aldeburgh (the first time you see Julian in the film).

Paul Balmer

Musician and director of musical documentaries

(b. 6th of June 1951 -    )

You stated that you stayed at Broad Oak for a few days prior to filming to develop the documentary. Do you remember the date or time of year?

We stayed at Semley a couple of times during the research phase of preparation. I found an excellent baroque guitar in the bathroom. I also visited the nearby lake which was the setting for the Bream/Williams duet in ‘My Life In Music’. My wardrobe at Semley had 10 full tailcoat suits which Julian had made for concert work. He had them made to fit in when seated in the guitar playing position.