Spencer, Robert, 1932-1997

Robert Allen Spencer was a lutenist, guitarist, singer, musicologist and teacher.  He studied at the Guildhall and Dartington Schools of Music and joined the Julian Bream Consort in 1961.  Robert Spencer is an acknowledged authority on the history of the lute and taught at the Royal Academy of Music, the Deller summer schools in France and Holland and at the Britten-Pears School in Aldeburgh.  He played a lute made in 1584 by Wendelio Venere of Padua which was restored in 1765 and again in 1977.

• Robert Spencer (obituary)