Julian Bream celebrated his 80th birthday in July this year. You wouldn’t know it if you had heard his endearing speech – droll, witty, self-effacing - at the 2013 Gramophone Awards as he collected a long overdue Lifetime Achievement Award, though these days he walks with the aid of a stick (‘anno domini’ as he ruefully admitted). Bream no longer plays in public, but we are left with the truly great legacy of his recordings – which, he claims, he never listens to.

The larger part of this legacy, his complete RCA recordings, arrived for review in a solid cloth box with gold lettering – de luxe model. I can honestly say I have never seen a set of CDs so beautifully and carefully presented, right down to the thoughtful addition of a ribbon to help open the tightly fitting lid, and the accommodating gap left for your hand to rifle through the 40 CDs obviating the usual manoeuvre when discs are too tightly packed of having to pull out a dozen of them to get the one you want. You will be paying top dollar for this little lot, so let me tell you what you get beyond the classy packaging.

The accompanying quality hardback booklet is in three languages which, after a well-judged introductory essay by Graham Wade, devotes a page to the track listing and timings of each CD. These are presented as miniature LPs with their original sleeve notes, covers – extraordinary how evocative some of these are – and contents: hence the shorter-than-usual running time of most discs (usually about the mid-40 minute mark).

Producer Robert Russ has ordered them in more or less chronological order. This is the most sensible way of presenting an intégrale like this. Not only can we follow Bream’s development, discoveries, enthusiasms and commissions through the decades but also his ever-receding hairline from the full head of 1959 (‘The Art of Julian Bream’ his earliest recording for RCA) to the widow’s peak of the 1970s and the now-familiar bald pate of the 1980s (the last album here is ‘La Guitarra Romantica’ from 1990). The (slight) disadvantage of this method is that any musical chronology goes out of the window. To get round this, Russ helpfully provides a complete discography (including Bream’s early Westminster and later EMI titles, none of which are included in this set of course) listed in 10 categories within which composers are listed alphabetically attached to the relevant CD number. Thus it is fairly easy to scan these pages and pick out all the Tárrega, Torroba and Turina or whatever else takes your fancy.

Despite the 30 years covered by this anthology, there are only a few repertoire duplications: three Concierto di Aranjuez (two with John Eliot Gardner conducting different orchestras, though I find it difficult to prefer either to Bream’s debut recording of the work) and alternative versions of a handful of Villa-Lobos and Albéniz. The saddest omission is that of the Bach Chaconne recorded only for other labels, but it is as hard to find fault with this collection (I spotted the minor omissions of Schubert’s dates – that’s all) as it is to single out any particular LP/CD for praise above any others.

There are over 300 tracks covering almost the entire history of the lute and guitar from Francesca Canova da Milano (1497-1543) to Leo Brouwer (b1939) with excursions to Spain (six discs), South America (two discs) and the Royal Courts of Europe. Personal preference might lead you to the lute recordings (solos, three albums with Peter Peers or the wonderful 1969 disc of sonatas for lute and harpsichord with the great George Malcolm) or to the many new works commissioned by or dedicated to Bream – Walton’s Five Bagatelles, for example, Malcolm Arnold’s Concerto and, most famous of all, Britten’s Nocturnal.

For what it’s worth, I was delighted to be reacquainted with ’Two Loves’, the sequence of Dowland and Shakespeare with Dame Peggy Ashcroft, the Villa-Lobos Études and the three discs with John Williams, the third of them recorded live in Avery Fisher Hall in 1978 – you would not have heard them better from the best seats in the house. But since you push me – I’ll pick just one: CD 14 from 1967 – Boccherini’s Introduction and Fandango (with George Malcolm again) and Haydn’s Guitar Quartet in D major with an adagio movement of mesmerising beauty.

In addition to the 40 CDs are two DVDs packed with three hours of previously unreleased goodies. Julian Bream: A Life in the Country is a Herbert Chappell film for the BBC (1976) plus a 1982 Omnibus feature with Bream playing and taking about Sir William Walton. DVD two is another BBC TV classic of the Julian Bream Consort made in 1961, a Monitor film profile from the following year, a second programme of the Consort (1964) and a 30 minute 1972 film of Kenneth Allsop in conversation with Bream.

Oh – and should our current Minister for the Arts (whoever he or she happens to be this month) be reading this perchance, why isn’t Mr Bream Sir Julian? Perhaps like Vaughan Williams and JB Priestley he has been offered a knighthood and declined for his own good reason. If not, please forward his name to the Honours Committee without delay. The greatest and most influential classical guitarist of our age deserves no less.

Jeremy Nicholas

Collection information:

'Julian Bream – Classical Guitar Anthology'

The Complete RCA Albums Collection

40 CDs + 2 DVDs + 96pp hardcover book with photos and discography

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