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Author: Julian Lloyd Webber

  • 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

  • Elgar Cello Concerto

    The Sunday Times 29th August 1976

    Delights at Hereford

    If neither as rose-red as Petra, nor quite as old as time,the sturdily elegant pile of Hereford Cathedral glowed a pleasant pink every balmy summer evening last week as we, the Three Choirs Festival faithful, poured out on to its parched lawns, Daily we enjoyed the usual mixture of ancient and modern, sacred and secular, in an atmosphere that is unique.

    Some things belong to it, of course, as, for example, Elgar’s Cello Concerto. Beautifully played by Julian Lloyd Webber and the RPO under Donald Hunt, with every Elgarian rallentando and pause in place, it sounded like an emanation of the building itself.

    Felix Aprahamian

  • Delius Cello Sonata

    The Times 20th November 1980

    Julian Lloyd Webber plays Delius

    WIGMORE HALL

    Webber Recital

    Lloyd Webber/ Parkin/Fenby

    Ken Russell’s film A Sons of Summer has recently been largely responsible for bringing to wider notice the name of Eric Fenby, the young composer who spent six years as amanuensis to the , blind and paralysed Delius. But long ago Fenby’s own published account of the episode, as well as his constant devotion to Delius’s music an enthusiasm he encourages in others through his teaching, writing and performances have brought him well-earned recognition in musical circles. And last night’s recital showed that at a sprightly 74, Fenby still remains Delius’s most faithful champion.

    Together with Julian Lloyd Webber he gave a glowing account of the Cello Sonata, a work’ he claims is much misunderstood by performers. Here we were shown that its melodies can be strong and muscular as well as broad and flowing; phrases were turned tidily, shaded subtly, and an overriding continuity of thought seemed to shape the whole.

    For the rest of the programme Julian Lloyd Webber was joined by Eric Parkin, a partnership that proved equally successful. John Ireland’s Cello Sonata plumbs the depths of both instruments, and both players responded with a warmth and sensibility that confirmed a special affinity with Ireland’s style.

    Both the Ireland sonata and the youthful Frank Bridge pieces that followed were approahed in a positive way that is all too rare in this sort of music. Phrasing was broad and long-breathed but never overstretched; hushed chromatic harmonies lingered but never outstayed their welcome. These were convincing and assured performances.

    Mr Lloyd Webber remained undaunted by Britten’s third unaccompanied Cello Suite, written for Rostropovich in 1971. The haunting Russian tunes that form its basis were given in sombre, almost funereal tones, with a folklike simplicity that contrasted well with the more manical technical exploits, where Mr Lloyd Webber impressed us in a more artful way.

    Judith Nagley

  • Delius Cello Sonata

    The Guardian 11th November 1980

    Julian Lloyd Webber plays Britten’s Cello Suite No 3

    WIGMORE HALL

    Edward Greenfield

    Webber Recital

    NO MORE dedicated advocate of English cello music has emerged in recent years than Julian Lloyd-Webber, and it was good to find him attracting a large audience for what a few years ago might have seemed a very specialised programme of Ireland, Delius, Bridge and Britten.

    True, it was Britten’s Third Cello Suite for solo cello which at the end of the pro¬gramme conveyed a degree of concentration in the argu¬ment largely missing till then. One might have expected that in his third essay in this inevitably restricted form Britten’s inspiration would have contracted, but Lloyd-Webber if anything more than the dedicatee, Rostropovich, proves the opposite with eight movements, jewelled in their compression, leading to the culminating passacaglia and epilogue.

    As a splendid start to the programme came the G minor Cello Sonata of John Ireland with Eric Parkin, long dedicated to the music of this composer, matching Lloyd Webber in responding to the taut, neurasthenic side of the composer as well as the relaxed warmth of the all-too-brief central slow movement.

    For Delius’s elusive Cello Sonata the doyen of Delians, to whose toils we actually owe the last works, Eric Fenby, added his unique authority. Alas, unlike the Double Concerto written about the same time, it is a work which meanders even in a performance as persuasive as this.

  • Delius Cello Sonata: The Times

    15th December

    London Debut

    Julian Lloyd Webber and Clifford Benson made their first London appearance as a cello and piano duo ib Tuesday. Mr Lloyd Webber’s cello tone is full and clear, his control assured: this combination worked like a dream in the nostalgic effusion of Delius’s sonata. Beethoven’s Op 102 No2 in D demands more varied qualities; the players caught some of the slow movement’s heavenly introspection, and contributed intelligent ideas elsewhere, notably the first movement coda and the lead into the finale. They had less to say in their opening Vivaldi sonata but Brahms’s Op99 pulsed with life-blood.