A Plucker With Pluck

Julian Bream is only 25 years old. Julian Bream is also the world's foremost lutanist. He made his achievement clear on Thursday evening before an overflowing and unusually demonstrative Sanders Theater audience. Known in this country hitherto only on recordings, Bream is making his first U.S. visit; and the Music Department is to be commended for getting him to Cambridge before his New York debut on the 30th of this month.

His one-man show here was a one-composer show, too. Bream served up on his delectable seven-course lute (made by London's renowned Thomas Goff) an appetizing baker's dozen of dance pieces and fantasias by England's greatest lute-composer and song-writer, John Dowland (properly pronounced Doh-land, contrary to almost universal practice).

The choices were excellent, ranging from the chromatic Forlorne Hope, in which Bream showed he could "pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow," through the expressive Sir John Langton's Pavan--the finest gem of the evening--to the syncopated and almost jazzy Earl of Essex's Galliard.

Bream himself turns out to be an exceedingly serious and intense young man. He has a near-flawless technique and a fine rhythmic sense. He elicits from his lute a wide variety of timbres and articulations, and phrases carefully--virtues he shares with Segovia, his teacher. Originally a pianist, he now divides his time between the lute and the guitar. It is only a shame that such a splendid artist cannot devote his full time to each.