Grieg Cello Sonata

Gramophone Good CD guide

Delius Cello Sonata. Caprice and Elegy. Hassan – Serenade (arr. Fenby). Romance.

Grieg Cello Sonata in A minor, Op. 36. Intermezzo in A minor, CW118. Julian Lloyd Webber (vc); Bengt Forsberg (pf). Philips 454 458-2PH (66 minutes: DDD: 4/98). Recorded 1996.

The links, both musical and personal, between Grieg and Delius are many, which makes this a very apt and attractive coupling, bringing together all the works each composer wrote for this medium. This is Julian Lloyd Webber’s second recording of the Delius Cello Sonata. His earlier version was made in 1981. The contrasts are fascinating. The overall duration this time is almost two minutes shorter, and the easier flow goes with a lighter manner and a less forward balance for the cello. The result in this freely lyrical single-movement structure is more persuasive, less effortful, with greater light and shade, and with just as much warmth in the playing. Lloyd Webber is splendidly matched by the playing of Bengt Forsberg, whose variety of expression and idiomatic feeling for rubato consistently match those of his partner. The Caprice and Elegy of 1930, originally dictated to Eric Fenby, much slighter pieces with obsessively repetitious phrases, inspire equally free and spontaneous performances, and it is particularly good to have the tuneful Romance of 1898, which inexplicably remained neglected for 80 years till Lloyd Webber revived it. The Grieg Sonata, too, among the most inspired and intense of his longer works, prompts magnetic playing, again with more light and shade than is common, helped by not having the cello spotlit, in a natural recording acoustic. The mystery of the very opening is intensified, and the pianissimos from both cellist and pianist are daringly extreme, especially so in the central slow movement with its haunting quotation from Grieg’s Sigurd Jorsuljar “Homage March”. The lyrical Intermezzo provides an attractive makeweight. Though a very high proportion of the music here is reflective, the meditative intensity of the playing sustains it well.

Penguin Guide to CDs

Grieg cello Sonata in A min.

Cello sonata in A mm., Op. 36; Intermezzo.

(N) Ph. Dig. 454 458-2 [id]. Julian Lloyd Webber, Bengt Forsberg — DELIUS: Cello

sonata; 2 Pieces; Romance; Hassan; Serenade,

In their apt coupling of the complete cello and piano music of both Delius and Grieg, Julian Lloyd Webber and Bengt Forsberg give a magnetic performance of the Grieg sonata, among the most inspired and intense of his longer works. With plenty of light and shade, the pianissimos from both cellist and pianist arc daringly extreme, magically so in the central slow movement with its haunting quotation from Grieg’s Homage march.

The Strad June 1998

DELIUS Cello Sonata; Two Pieces; serenade from Hassan; Romance

GRIEG Cello Sonata in A minor, Intermezzo

Julian Lloyd Webber (cello),Bengt Forsberg (piano)

Philips 454 458-2

‘When I first heard Grieg,’ Delius wrote, ‘it was if a breath of mountain air had come to me.’ How true are those words in this disc, as we move from the hot-house environment of his music to the limpid beauty of Grieg’s Intermezzo and Sonata. They are a world apart, a fact made all the more obvious by Julian Lloyd Webber’s excellent performances.

The Delius Sonata (1916) is a score of intense beauty conceived as a single uninterrupted arch, and Lloyd Webber invests the music with an abundant spectrum of tone colour. Maybe his use of portamentos almost errs on the generous, yet one feels his love and affection for Delius, the soaring lines of the Caprice, the first of the Two Pieces, being a moment of erotic radiance.

For the Grieg, Lloyd Webber totally changes his approach and tone quality, the gentle lyricism of the Intermezzo perfectly captured. His view of the sonata is more introverted than normal, with rather muted moments of drama. It is a view I enjoyed, and in Bengt Forsberg Lloyd Webber has a partner who ideally complements his interpretations.

DAVID DENTON

BBC Music Magsazine May 1998

Grieg Cello Sonata

DELIUS Cello Sonata; Two Pieces; serenade from Hassan; Romance

GRIEG Cello Sonata in A minor, Intermezzo

Julian Lloyd Webber (cello),Bengt Forsberg (piano)

Philips 454 458-2 65:43 mins

Lloyd Webber and Forsberg make an exceptionally well-matched partnership in this disc of Delius and Grieg complete works for cello and piano. It’s easy to ride roughshod over Delius’s music, but here every dynamic, nuance and subtlety of tempo is delicately accomplished. The single-movement Sonata is a particularly rewarding experience: Lloyd Webber caresses the music and plays it with passionate conviction —from the opening melody, rising richly from the reverberant lower strings, through characteristic drooping minor thirds and languid rubatos, to a wonderful, uplifting culmination.

Forsberg’s renowned excellence as a recital partner provides Lloyd Webber with a much more sympathetic accompaniment than did Eric Fenby, with whom he has also recorded the work (on Unicorn-Kanchana) — despite Fenby’s eulogy on the Sonata, printed in the booklet notes.

The Grieg Sonata too is a treat, though more fire could have gone into the climaxes of the stormy first movement. The Andante is treated with such reverence that Lloyd Webber gives the impression that he hardly dares play it, while the folk-inspired finale inspires confident, rhythmically precise playing from both.

The character pieces which complete the disc include the early Delius Romance (1896): this shows most clearly the influence Grieg had on the younger composer at this stage.

Janet Banks

PERFORMANCE *****

SOUND *****

Gramophone April 1998

Grieg Cello Sonata

Delius Sonata for Cello and Piano.

Caprice and Elegy. Hassan — Serenade (arr. Fenby). Romance.

Grieg Intermezzo in A minor, CWI 18. Sonata for Cello and Piano in A minor, op. 36.

Julian Lloyd Webber (vc); Bengt Forsberg (pf).

Philips ® D 454 458-2PH (66 minutes: DDD).

The result in this freely lyrical single-movement structure is more persuasive, less effortful, with greater light and shade, and with just as much warmth in the playing. In that Lloyd Webber is splendidly matched — as he is throughout the disc — by the playing of Bengt Forsberg. best known for accompanying his compatriot, the mezzo. Anne-Sofie von Otter, not least in their Gramophone Award-winning disc of Grieg songs (DG. 6/93). Here Forsberg’s variety of expression and idiomatic feeling for rubato consistently match those of his partner. The Caprice and Elegy of 1930. originally dictated to Fenby, much slighter pieces with obsessively repetition phrases, like the Hassan Serenade, inspire equally free and spontaneous performances, and it is particularly good to have the tuneful Romance of 1898, written in Paris, which inexplicably remained neglected for 80 years till Lloyd Webber revived it.

The Grieg Sonata, too, among the most inspired and intense of his longer works, prompts magnetic playing, again with more light and shade than is common, helped by not having the cello spotlit in a natural recording acoustic. The mystery of the very opening is intensified, and the pianissimos from both cellist and pianist are daringly extreme, especially so in the central slow movement with its haunting quotation from Grieg’s Sigurd Jorsalfar “Homage March”. The lyrical Intermezzo provides an attractive makeweight. Though a very high proportion of the music here is reflective, the meditative intensity of the playing sustains it well. The booklet contains a delightful photo of Delius with Grieg and his wife as well as Halvorsen and Sinding, all playing cards.

The Guardian 13th Febrauary 1998

Grieg Cello Sonata

Delius: Cello Sonata, Caprice and Elegy,

Serenade (Hassan), Romance; Grieg: Cello Sonata, lntermezzo

Lloyd Webber/Forsberg (Philips 454 458-2)

****

Julian Lloyd Webber has had the attractive idea of offering, in coupling, the complete cello and piano music of both Delius and Grieg, composers closely linked both in musical style and as personal friends. Since he last recorded the Delius Cello Sonata — for Unicorn in 1981 — Lloyd Webber has refined and deepened his reading, now tauter than before in a single-movement work which can seem to sprawl. The Grieg Sonata, too, prompts magnetic playing. The pianissimos from both cellist and pianist are daringly extreme, magically so in the central slow movement with its haunting quotation from Grieg’s Homage March.

Edward Greenfield

The Sunday Telegraph 1st February 1998

THE SUNDAY REVIEW – Critics’ Choice

Grieg/Delius Cello Sonatas etc.

Lloyd Webber/ Forsberg (Philips 454 458-2).

An intelligent pairing, since Delius loved Grieg’s music. Both composers’ cello sonatas, played with passionate advocacy by Julian Lloyd Webber and Bengt Forsberg, are untypical in that Grieg’s — a glorious work — is more tempestuous than one would expect from this lyricist and Delius’s is structurally taut. Yet both are typical in their richness of material.

Michael Kennedy

The Observer 25th January 1998

Julian Lloyd Webber Grieg/Delius – Complete Cello & Piano Music

Grieg, Delius Complete music for cello and piano.

Julian Lloyd Webber (cello),Bengt Forsberg (piano)

(Philips 454 458-2)

Thoughtful pairing of two composers linked by a friendship which lasted until Grieg’s death in 1907. The poetic repertoire suits Lloyd Webber’s increasingly eloquent playing. His Delius is lyrical, especially in the Serenade from Hassan. In Grieg’s fiery A minor sonata, Lloyd Webber avoid false heroics in favour of passion. Forsberg is a sinewy, sensitive accompanist.

Fiona Maddocks

The Daily Telegraph 31st January 1998

A great double act

Grieg, Delius Complete music for cello and piano.

Lloyd Webber (cello), Forsberg (piano), (Philips 454 458-2)

GRIEG and Delius go well together. They were friends for almost a quarter of a century. Grieg it was who persuaded Delius’s father to let young Fred continue his musical studies; and, for Delius, Grieg’s music was like “a breath of mountain air”.

Neither composer wrote a great deal for cello and piano, but it is all here on this captivating disc.

Julian Lloyd Webber and Bengt Forsberg find that elusive subtlety of colouring and inflection which determine the shape, the emotional perspective and the passion of Delius’s rhapsodic one-movement Sonata; charges of amorphousness might be levelled against it, but here, played with urgency, it emerges cohesively.

In the more clear-cut structure of Grieg’s Sonata the gestures are equally heartfelt, the tonal palette broad and aptly applied, the finale’s fiery temperament communicated unstintingly.

Delius’s magically rarefied Caprice and Elegy, coupled with an early Romance, Eric Fenby’s arrangement of the. Serenade from Hassan and Grieg’s modest intermezzo, are little jewels.