Julian Bream

“My father started me off on the guitar, and we learned classical guitar together.”

“In 1984, I was contacted by Michael Taylor, who had won a commission from a sponsor and decided he would like to paint a picture of me. I agreed to do it, because I'm not unused to sitting for portraits: my father was a commercial artist and I used to model for him.”

“It's very good for one's brain and muscular system to work in harmony. If you keep up your playing it just keeps things ticking over.”

“I used to drive myself about in an old Austin van... and then have to sleep in the back because I couldn't afford a hotel.”

“My own style on the guitar grew out of my experience with the lute. I suppose some people might say I play each like the other. And of course I know a lot of guitar fans who wish I would stop playing the lute and vice versa.”

“There is no piece of guitar music that has the formal beauty of a piano sonata by Mozart, or the richly worked out ideas and passion of a late Beethoven string quartet, or for that matter the beautiful mellifluous poetry of a Chopin Ballade.”

“The Nocturnal' was very nearly beyond me.”

“I'm a very bad teacher.”