February 5th 2014
A Tale of Two Cellos
Review: Julian and Jiaxin Lloyd Webber at St. George’s Hall, Liverpool
A Tale of Two Cellos It’s no secret music is a family affair for the Lloyd Webbers. Dad William was an organist and composer, mum Jean a piano teacher, while eldest son Andrew dabbles in the West End. Then there’s Julian, the Stradivarius-playing cello virtuoso and figurehead of the In Harmony project which has worked such wonders in West Everton.
The newest addition to the clan is Shanghai-born fellow cellist Jiaxin who married Julian Lloyd Webber five years ago. The couple are currently on the road with an intriguing new repertoire borne from looking for a project to do together.
They’ve taken all kinds of music, from Greensleeves to a Shostakovich film score, Vivaldi to Ireland, and Purcell to Arvo Part, and transcribed it for two cellos (hence the title) with a piano accompaniment, on tour played with lovely lilting serenity by Pam Chowhan.
Vocal duets of course work particularly well for this most human of instruments, Julian Lloyd Webber’s Strad a warm and mellow baritone and Jiaxin’s cello harmonising in bass-baritone fashion.
The cello also has a melancholic timbre which evokes images of a bygone Mittel-Europe, and which came to the fore in Rachmaninov’s The Waves are Dreaming, in the lovely, longing phrasing of Shostakovich’s Gadfly prelude, and, hopping continents, a waltz by Piazzolla which was a masterclass in musical storytelling. You could just imagine yourself in a late-night milonga.
Elsewhere the well thought out programme, interspersed with Lloyd Webber’s often humorous introductions, included Reynaldo Hahn’s If My Songs Were Only Winged, played with thoughtfulness and aching sweetness; a fierce de Falla solo from Julian and a chocolately Bach Prelude from Jiaxin; and the delightful and richly melodic Moon Silver, composed by William Lloyd Webber.
Catherine Jones
