Spirited – The Gazette of the English Music Festival December 2013
A Tale of Two Cellos CD Review
A Tale of Two CellosAlthough this disc only contains a handful of works by British composers, it nevertheless demands a mention for the beauty of the playing featured thereon — and, of course, for those couple of English works.
The disc ranges from Monteverdi and Pergolesi through to Saint-Saens and Rachmaninov in a rather charming programme that works extremely well as a whole; the first English piece we come across is Holst’s Hymn to the Dawn from the Choral Hymns from the Rig Veda, arranged for four cellos and harp by Julian Lloyd Webber. Julian and Jiaxin Lloyd Webber are here joined by Guy Johnston and Laura van der Heijden (cellos) and Catrin Finch; fascinatingly, this arrangement really does work rather spectacularly well.
Roger Quilter’s My Lady (Greensleeves) follows in a particularly rich and sonorous rendition; William Lloyd Webber’s Moon Silver is rather lovely, as is the atmospheric version of Purcell’s Lost is my Quiet for ever; while Joseph Barnby’s Sweet and Low starts to bring the disc to a gentle and yet enchanting close; it is followed by Quilter’s Summer Sunset, which provides the penultimate track, before the disc is finally brought to a lilting finish with Arvo Pärt’s much-loved Estonian Lullaby.
