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Author: Julian Lloyd Webber

  • Glass Cello Concerto

    Gramophone September 2004

    Glass

    Julian Lloyd Webber, cellist; Evelyn Glennie and Jonathan Haas, timpanists; Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Gerard Schwarz.

    Orange Mountain MUSiC 0014; CD

    The Concerto Project Volume 1

    Cello Concerto. Concerto Fantasy for two Timpanists and Orchestras

    Julian Lloyd Webber (vc), Evelyn Glennie, Jonathan Haas perc,

    Royal Liverpool Philhamonic Orchestra/ Gerard Schwarz.

    Orange Mountain Music OMMOO14 (45 minutes DDD)

    Music both engaging and exciting as Glass puts his top soloists through their paces

    The Cello Concerto was conceived when Julian Lloyd Webber asked Glass to compose a work for the cellist’s 50th birthday. Lloyd Webber says the piece, premiered in October 2001, contains technical hurdles he had not seen before in particularly in the opening cadenza, but for the listener it’s not a difficult work. That cadenza, underpinned by muffled, percussive figures from the orchestra, is dramatic, with an undercurrent of ambiguos emotion. but it is also lithe aid attractive, evocative of the classics of cello literature— tore, nor least Bach and Elgar. After about. 320″ the orchestra introduces brighter textures and typical Glass motifs.

    There are passages where the debate between orchestra and soloist seems to contrast those often—copied, easily parodied Glass mannerisms with his more melodically arid harmonically expansive work of recent years. The result is one of the most engaging, impressive and beautiful things Glass has done. The slow movement, lyrical and graceful, sets us up perfectly for the shock of the opening of the finale, which bursts in with one of those ‘accelerating train’ episodes Glass does so effectively.

    The gestation of the timpani concerto was more problematic. I can sympathise with Glass’s hesitations. Despite its tuneful capabilities, I associate timpani primarily with melodrama and bombast and, while Class has never been averse to those characteristics, timpani still isn’t an ideal choice for a concerto solo instrument. There are 14 of them here, presumably due to the need to negotiate fairly rapid movement through different keys.

    It all works remarkably well in the event. The fast first movement has exciting, ritualistic solo par, perhaps influenced by South-East Asian and Japanese traditions The slow movement manages to make the drums sound lyrical embedded in settings of regal brass and pastoral woodwind. the cadenza preceding the third movement, highly athletic as it is, proves to be a warm-up for Evelyn Glen me and Jonathan Haas before the technical tour dc-force of the finale.

    Barry Witherden

  • Fricker Cello Sonata: Sunday Times 1973

    Fricker Cello Sonata/Purcell Room

    ‘Fricker’s pungent cello and piano sonata was vividly projected by Julian Lloyd Webber and Clifford Benson, the cellist later disporting his warm tone and assured technique in Britten’s First Suite.’

    Felix Aprahamian

  • Elgar Cello Concerto

    The Mail on Sunday 15th April 2001

    For he’s a jolly good cello…

    David Mellor

    Julian Lloyd Webber was 50 yesterday, a fitting moment to pay tribute to an outstanding artist and one of music’s nicest and most approachable of men. He recognises no musical barriers and effortlessly straddles the divide between popular and serious that cuts off so many others from their audience.

    His next album will be arrangements of his brother’s most memorable melodies. But that same Julian Lloyd Webber is touring north of the border this week, giving the world premiere of a notably uncompromising piece by Scotland’s most promising serious composer, James MacMillan, his Cello Sonata No 2.

    Julian has never despised a good tune and throughout his career has either made himself or commisxC2xADsioned from others arrangements of great melodies from opera or the repertoire of other instruments. He reasons: why should the devil have all the good tunes when the cello always sounds the noblest of the lot? And few make it sound more beautiful than Julian on his Stradivarius.

    So, on his discs, Gounod’s ‘Ave Maria’ and Bach’s ‘Jesu, Joy Of Man’s Desiring’ rub shoulders with an award-winning Elgar Cello Concerto, while ‘Softly Awake My Heart’ from Samson And Delilah sits comfortably alongside the world premiere recording of the Cello Concerto the great Rodrigo himself wrote for Julian in 1982.

    Julian has made more than 50 world premiere recordings, pushing out the boundaries of the cello repertoire in all directions. Michael Nyman wrote a concerto for cello and saxophone for him, while Gavin Bryars achieved considerable kudos from his concerto for Julian, ‘A Farewell To Philosophy’.

    Julian’s discography is a long one, so let me pull out two plums. The recordings he made for RCA in the early Eighties have been gathered together in a twofer. Celebration, in honour of his birthday and include, as well as the Rodrigo recording, some outstanding English music: Delius’s Concerto, an unjustly neglected piece, and Hoist’s Invocation, which is heard today solely because of Julian’s efforts.

    Philips started recording him in 1984 and some of the finest fruits of his labours for them have been put on to an inexpensive two-CD set entitled Favourite Cello Concertos. Here his outstanding Elgar, with Yehudi Menuhin conducting, is coupled with a particularly fine account of the Dvorak Concerto recorded in Prague with the Czech Philharmonic.

    There is the original version of Tchaikovsky’s lovable Rococo VarxC2xADiation and a stunning Saint-Saens First Concerto with the son of another cellist, Jan Pascal Toitelier, on the podium. This recording more than any other shows Julian at his absolute best. Every nuance has been digested and rehearsed, so what you get is a remarkably detailed reading, with all sorts of things you do not hear elsewhere making their impression, without damaging the overall sweep of this commanding work.

    Julian has never taken his fame for granted and practises several hours a day. When he started there were some who suggested he was benefiting from the Lloyd Webber name. I am equally certain that the name has often inhibited recognition of just how special he is.

    Why not judge for yourselves, not just from the discs, but from a celebratory concert to be given by Julian and his brother at the Royal Albert Hall on June 1, when they will play in public for the first time music from the forthcoming Julian Plays Andrew CD. Tickets are reasonably priced and the cause, the Prince’s Trust, is a worthwhile one. I’m not missing it. Neither should you.

    Penguin Good CD Guide 2003

  • Elgar Cello Concerto

    The Courier Mail, Brisbane 19th August 1987

    100 musicians make year’s best concert

    Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

    Menuhin; Lloyd Webber

    By JOHN VILLAUME

    If the young Wagner’s first experience of Rossini’s William Tell Overture was anywhere near as gripping as last night’s performance by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, no wonder he called it “music of the future”.

    The capacity audience in the Concert Hall of the Performing Arts Complex heard playing by nearly 100 musicians who, each and every one, didn’t really need the presence of so august a conductor as Sir Yehudi Menuhin.

    The music came from within themselves needing no out-side prompting.

    The first fortissimo was almost frightening in its intensity, yet the conductor was always persuasive, never demonstrative.

    In fact, the term “attack” seems ludicrous to describe the quiet sound that made its presence fell rather than heard so often during the evening.

    There was often a feeling that each phrase was flowing naturally from what went before – no such thing as a rigid beat appeared anywhere.

    Brilliance in plenty was released where needed; the march in Tchaikovsky’s Pathetique Symphony surged on to an irresistible climax.

    The Elgar Cello Concerto received a magnificent performance from Julian Lloyd Webber, with perfect accompaniment by the orchestra.

    We have had several recent performances of this work but last night’s reading set a standard and became an experience never to be forgotten.

    Menuhin’s long association with Elgar bore rich fruit in this searching exploration of the composer’s deepest thoughts.

    Many subtle turns of phrase, often overlooked by other aspirants, received their true value in Lloyd Webber’s hands.

    For at least one listener, this was the finest concert of the year.

  • Elgar Cello Concerto

    Luister November 1986

    Excerpt from Dutch magazine “Luister” review in November 1986 in which Julian Lloyd Webber’s and Sir Yehudi Menuhin’s recent version of the Elgar Cello Concerto is compared to the re-release of Jacqueline du Pre’s with John Barbirolli.

    …”What a contrast between the tough, masculine, cocky tone of the then 20-year-old Du Pre and the gentle, lyrical, warmly singing tone of Webber. Thanks to this difference, the meditative side of this concerto is given every chance by Webber and Menuhin; dramatics recede to the background. You need Du Pre and Barbirolli for that…yet that wonderfully self-contained and soul-searching interpretation by Menuhin and Webber – there is much to be said for that too. In any case, it gives the concerto a slightly sad, melancholy atmosphere, which certainly does not leave the listener unmoved…”

  • Elgar Cello Concerto

    Music and Musicians October 1986

    “Ably and sympathetically abetted by Menuhin, this performance combines character and fidelity, being sensitive, mercurial and moving by turns – a really integrated performance to which I will return again and again.”

  • Elgar Cello Concerto

    Daily Telegraph 15th September 1986

    The Cello Concerto receives an affectionate, true-to-the-score and altogether admirable performance from Julian Lloyd Webber with the RPO conducted by our senior Elgarian, Sir Yehudi Menuhin. Opinions differ as to Menuhin’s effectiveness as a conductor, but the results of this recording suggest that he has a mind of his own where this composer is concerned.

    His performance of the Variations is no routine run-through. but a considered and sometimes controversial interpretation. I think he perhaps takes the theme too slowly, but at the same time, just listen to the nuances of string tone that he persuades from the KPO. Even in so competitive a field, this issue commands attention.

    MICHAEL KENNEDY

  • Elgar Cello Concerto

    Gramophone July 1986

    ELGAR Cello Concerto. Variations on an original theme, ‘Enigma”. Julian Lloyd Webber (vc);

    Royal Philharmonic Orchestra / Sir Yehudi Menuhin. Philips digital

    There are some musicians, I am told, who question the abilities of Julian Lloyd Webber as a cellist and Menuhin as a conductor. That, I suppose, is part of the penalty of their name and fame, but it is none the less an unfair and unperceptive judgment which will gain no support from their recording of Elgar’s Cello Concerto. I prefer it to the recent Yo-Yo Ma Previn performance on CBS and I would risk a small wager that Elgar himself might have preferred it, because it takes note of his own description of the Concerto: “A real large work, and I think good and alive.” Its chief merit is that it projects the work’s emotional intensity without needing to resort to unauthorized extremes of tempo. Lloyd Webber may make the occasional ritardando where none is indicated, but he is otherwise conspicuously faithful to the letter of the score. Menuhin’s moderato tempo in the first movement is just right, it seems to me, sufficiently world-weary without sounding overcome by lassitude. The clarity of the recording, made in a comfortably resonant acoustic, ensures that the happy touches of orchestral detail are heard without undue prominence.

    Menuhin’s account of the Variations lacks some of the finesse that distinguished Mackerras’s HMV recording, but it is the interpretation of a musician who has lived long with this music and loves it. He and the engineers have taken immense care with the timbre of the upper strings in the statement of the theme and there are several passages the prominence given to the lower strings in the middle section of “Dorabella”. for example where Menuhin directs the listener’s attention to yet another facet of this inexhaustibly fascinating score. Nothing ‘routine’ here, nor in the RPO’s playing. Michael Kennedy

  • Elgar Cello Concerto

    The Japan Times 2nd November 1986

    Elgar Cello Concerto/Lloyd Webber/Belohlavek

    Speaking of Music…..

    The Japan Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra’s subscription concert, conducted by Jiri Bclohlavek, introduced the English cellist, Julian Lloyd Webber, featuring cello concertos by Elgar and Haydn, concluding Hie evening with Dvorak’s Seventh Symphony (Tokyo Bunka Kaikan, Oct. 22).

    Lloyd Webber presented a beautifully shaped and warmly toned account of Elgar’s exacting E minor Concerto. It was an intensely enjoyable performance, with playing of strong feeling, finely spun singing line, and, particularly in the slow movement, deep poetry. The orchestral accompaniment guided by Belohlavek had good spirit.

    The Haydn Concerto in D major (Hob. VIlb/4) we heard on this occasion was a novelty – not the familiar one of 1783, but a work based on a cello-piano manuscript version discovered in 1943, from which Lloyd Webber made his own performing version tor cello and strings. Whether or not. this music is really by Haydn is yet to be established. But Lloyd Webber’s enthusiastic playing certainly made a favorable case for it. (There is a Philips recording of this work, coupled with the fine C major Concerto, another recent Haydn discovery, in which Lloyd Webber serves both as soloist and conductor of the English Chamber Orchestra).

    By MARCEL GRILLI

  • Elgar Cello Concerto

    The Strad July 1984

    ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL, APRIL 29

    LLOYD WEBBER (CELLO)/KENT COUNTY YOUTH ORCHESTRA/DE CSILLERY

    BRAHMS, ELGAR, HOLST

    Youth orchestras have a lot to give, and the Kent County Youth Orchestra is no exception. But despite Bela de Csillery’s long and close involvement with the orchestra, I wasn’t entirely convinced that he consistently drew the best from it. Brahms’ ‘Tragic’ Overture contained some very good playing, unanimous strings, solid trombones and heavenly oboe solos, but the conducting was sound rather than inspiring, creating no thrills in the lead back to the recapitulation, and the large string section was often underpowered. Nor did Csillery give the orchestra its head in Hoist’s Planets; tempos were fast, but not fast enough to generate excitement, and the more sustained movements lacked serenity. ‘I Vow to Thee, My Country’ had little old English grandeur.

    Julian Lloyd Webber, doyen of the younger British cellists, was on superb form in Elgar’s Concerto, bringing his accustomed generosity of feeling to a work obviously very close to his heart. What distinguishes him from other cellists is that he so palpably plays with the orchestra, always with an ear to what is going on in the accompaniments. That said, I wonder what the performance would have been like with a more sympathetic conductor at the helm. The orchestral strings simply did not match Lloyd Webber’s phrasing when they took up the first subject (phrasing that young players should listen to and learn from). As in the Hoist the orchestral contribution was too homogenous, with neither fire nor repose, nor enough light and shade. A pity to have to present such young players in so unfavourable a light, as there was no doubt as to their collective talent and ability.

    Andrew Mikolajski