Yorkshire Post 10th August 2007
Elgar Cello Concerto
The music of Edward Elgar has never been so popular as it is today, with a capacity audience in the vast expanses of the International Centre celebrating the composer’s 150th anniversary.
It had as its main attraction Julian Lloyd Webber as the soloist in the Cello Concerto, his interpretation universally acclaimed, the unforced approach presenting a lucid and often deeply moving account of the composer’s autumnal work.
The solo part does present technical challenges that many soloists today use as a virtuoso showpiece, Lloyd Webber by contrast being at such ease that he effortlessly marries these moments into the general texture.
In Owain Arwel Hughes and the Royal Philharmonic, he had ideal partners, always adding to the work’s outgoing colours, yet perfectly balancing their weight with the lyric qualities of the solo line.
It was the younger Elgar who painted musical pictures of his friends in the Enigma Variations, tempos here nudged along without ever sounding rushed, the dramatic sections never wanting for impact.
Walton’s Spitfire Prelude and Fugue was lacking in sheer brio, Vaughan Williams’s overture, The Wasps, superbly buzzing with infinite mischief.
David Denton
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Harrogate International Centre
