British guitarist and lute player Julian Bream has died at the age of 87. Australian guitarist and writer Paul Ballam-Cross pays tribute to the inspirational musician.

I can perfectly clearly recall hearing Julian Bream’s playing for the first time, 15 years ago. I’d picked up the guitar as an angst-filled teenager, and, naturally, immediately gravitated towards all of the strangest, most angular styles of rock. Having decided that angry, dissonant walls of distortion and feedback was perfect for me, along came a recording of Bream playing JS Bach’s Fugue in A minor, BWV 1000, that totally shattered what I thought classical music was. The idiosyncratic and yet completely unmannered approach that he took with this music opened up centuries of music to me, and suddenly, I understood what classical music could mean, and how it could make listeners feel. I have to admit, his performance of the piece became somewhat of an obsession for me – at one point I was very literally beginning each day by listening to it.

Julian BreamJulian Bream (1933 – 2020)

What I heard in his playing then was the very same thing that means his performances will still...