Search Tool

1) Search in…

2) Search for…

Specified search details…

No search criteria specified

List content will go here

Search Tool

1) Search in…

2) Search for…

Specified search details…

No search criteria specified

List content will go here

Author: Julian Lloyd Webber

  • Delius Cello Sonata

    Musical Times November 1983

    Delius Cello Sonata and Cello Concerto with Julian Lloyd Webber

    Record Reviews

    Delius Cello Sonata; Three Piano Preludes; Polka?Zum Carnival.

    Lili Boulanger Piano and Chamber Music. Lloyd Webber, Fenby, Parkin/Parkin, Barry Griffiths, Keith Harvey

    Unicorn-Kanchana DKP 9021

    The fact that in 1919 the Delius cello sonata shared a recital in Paris with some Lili Boulanger songs is excuse enough for bringing these rarities together. It’s all music of subtle distinction. Fenby introduces the Delius side by reading the account from Delius as I knew him of how he accompanied the cello concerto and sonata after his first night at Grez. One can only echo Delius’s ‘Bravo, Fenby, my boy’, and add similar commendation for Julian Lloyd Webber, who has unusual and masterly control of Delius’s ebb and flow. Eric Parkin is sensitive in the atmospheric preludes but needs a dash more irony for the honky-tonk Polka. The Boulanger pieces range from the Harmonies du soir, a transcription for piano trio of an aria from her Prix de Rome cantata of 1913 (Faust et Helens), to the sombre and acrid threnody, D’un soir triste, from the last year of her short life. The music is economical and taut, sensuously alert but controlled with fastidious judgment. The ‘nature’ titles of most of the seven works belie the cogent seriousness other manner. Nothing is facile, nothing is dull, and her interpreters make an eloquent case for music we should hear more of.

    ROBERT ANDERSON

  • Delius Cello Sonata

    The Guardian 18th October 1982

    Delius Cello Concerto – Fairfield Hall

    Philharmonia

    FEW cellists have been as enterprising as Julian Lloyd Webber in extending the concerto repertoire beyond the handful of familiar works. Often such labours have to be their own reward. But the Delius Concerto is really worth resurrecting. The first thing, however, is to forget the title. The work should be classified with those reveries, elegies and meditations which French composers love to write for solo strings. There is no dramatic or perceptible constructive development or interaction between soloist and orchestra. Instead, a sustained outpouring of lyrical melody in which closely related themes seek to merge their identities rather than to declare their independence.

    The work, which calls for the smoothest and sweetest playing, suits Lloyd Webber well. The cellist-poet wanders through a forest of lush sounds and becomes part of the landscape. There are many passages where orchestra leads, with cello supplying melodic arabesques, the equivalent of passages in conventional concertos where the orchestra plays the tunes while the soloist, shows off in elaborate figurations. Take a slice of the Delius Concerto anywhere and you will get a fair sample of the whole. Rearrange your slices in random order and I doubt if most of us would be any the wiser. But Delius’s ability to sustain the mood for 20 minutes ensures that we are drawn in by the spell of the music.

    Hugo Cole

  • Delius Cello Sonata

    The Financial Times 20th November 1980

    Julian Lloyd Webber/ Delius

    Julian Lloyd Webber

    Along the road to celebrity, Julian Lloyd Webber has found the space and time to make a speciality of English cello music of the first half of the 20th century. The niche suits his generous tone and unabashed pharsing well; the sonatas by Ireland and Delius that made up the first half of his recital at the Wigmore Hall last night require the most committed advocacy to cohere and sustain attention.

    But sumptuousness may not be all. Mr. Lloyd Webber played both sonatas superbly, yet gave us in the process a surfeit of lyrical effusion. Placed so uncomfortably close in a programme, Ireland and Deblius can seem to mimic each other’s failing: a tendency to uncontrolled soliloquy in one, a want of rhythmic firmness in the other. Ireland’s sonata may be one of most powerful pieces, unerringly thematic with a fine slow movement and splendid transition to the blustering finale (both showing Mr. Lloyd Webber at his best), but it lacks definition. In structure it hangs together more obviously than Delius’s sinigle-movement sonata, but given (as here) a sure hand with the modulations of mood and temper the Delius feigns more cogency, more finality.

    The pianist for the Ireland sonata and for two short pieces by Bridge was Eric Parkin, dependable and confident, but for the Delius Mr. Lloyd Webber was joined by Eric Fenby, a pleasant, unspectacular tribute to Delius’s amanuensis. Mr. Fenby handled the predominantly chordal accompaniment to the sonata most sensitively, and was surely impressed by the scope and intelligence of the cello playing.

    by Andrew Clements

  • Delius Cello Sonata

    The Daily Telegraph 20th November 1980

    Julian Lloyd Webber plays Delius

    Julian Lloyd Webber

    Eric Parkin

    Eric Fenby

    Webber Recital

    IT IS some time since London has had an opportunity to hear a programme of works for cello and piano by four of our most distinguished composers, performed with such authenticity and technical perfection as was the case at Wigmore Hall last night.

    In Ireland’s Sonata in G minor (1923) Julian Lloyd Webber and Eric Parkin displayed instrumental mastery in projecting the strong and eloquent themes. A wonderful effect was achieved by Mr Parkin’s sustained and satisfying line in the haunting principal theme of the slow movement following on from Mr Lloyd Webber’s incisive opening. This finale had an unusual strength, drive and attack from both players.

    A similar sense of purpose marked their handling of the long crescendo in Bridge’s Elegie (1911) and in his arresting Scherzetto (c. 1902), recently discovered at the Royal College of Music and a first London performance. Delius’s rarely heard Sonata. (1916) brought Eric Fenby on to the platform. This imaginative pianist, who was the composer’s amanuensis from 1928 until his death, provided a close yet independent partnership with Mr Lloyd Webber’s rich tone. On his own in Britten’s Suite, Mr Lloyd Webber, who incidentally performed the very testing programme without music, showed how mature his art has become.

    D.A.W.M.

  • 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 June 1976

    “In Mr Lloyd Webber, for the first time since Jacqueline du Pre took the Concerto and Sonata into her repertory, Delius has an eloquent exponent able to draw out the long-spanned sequential writing and make emotional rhetoric out of a style which can easily sound merely prolix.”

  • Delius Cello Sonata

    Gramophone March 1974

    Music for Cello and Piano

    Julian Lloyd Webber (cello), Clifford Benson (piano).

    Bach; Solo Cello Suite No. 3 in C major, BWV1009. Boccherini: String Quintet, Op. 37 No. 7—Rondo in C major.

    Beethoven: Cello Sonata No. 4 in C major, op. 102 No. 1—first movement. Popper: Gavotte No. 2 in D major, Op. 23.

    Saint-Saens: Allegro appasionata, Op. 43. Fauré: Elegie in C minor, Op. 24. Delius: Cello Sonata in one movement.

    A welcome record on several counts. I imagine that I have been asked to comment on it because the longest single work it contains is Delius’s Sonata for cello and piano, and hearing the first-ever recording of that wonderful piece provided me with one of my major musical experiences at the age of sixteen. There have, been three other versions since then, but this is the one I prefer, and the one most worthy of a place beside that original recording by its dedicatee, Beatrice Harrison, with Harold Craxton (HMV Dl103-4, 8/26).

    Setting aside any private contentment that a favourite work, still hardly known to the majority of professional cellists, should be included here among more familiar items of the cello repertoire, let me welcome the disc as a whole. What a splendid idea this “All about Music” Library seems: the “Voice of the Instrument” series has real informative and educational value. The accompanying booklet, modest though it is, gives a potted history of the instrument, a diagram showing how the cello works, and a succinct introduction to the music played. This certainly provides model examples of how to write for the cello, with the two Bourrées from Bach’s Solo Cello Suite and the first movement of Beethoven’s C major Cello Sonata representing the staple classic of the repertoire. Quite right that Popper should have his place: cello fodder, maybe, but of superior quality. The Saint-Saëns and Fauré pieces, too, have their deserved place, and, between them, the selected pieces provide scope for all kinds of cello playing: double-stopping, glissandi and harmonics are here, but I miss some typical pizzicato. Whether they seek cellistic enlightenment or not, all Delius lovers will have to acquire this record for the really beautiful and lovingly played account of the Delius Sonata. Two fine young players on the threshold of undoubtedly distinguished careers could hardly have offered a better carte de visite as proof of their musical sensitivity. And the recording has the right kind of resonance to enhance the superlative cello and piano tone they produce.

    F.A.

  • 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.

  • Delius Cello Sonata

    The Times 15th December

    London Debut

    Exceptional Talent

    Wigmore Hall Recital December 7th

    An exceptional talent, the 20-year-old cellist Julian Lloyd Webber, made his first Wigmore Hall sonata recital last night a very distinguished affair.

    An equally gifted and now well-established musician, Clifford Benson, was his partner at the piano. It was evident that their close partnership had been achieved in many collaborations, which may explain the risk they took in opening with the Vivaldi Sonata No. 5.

    The rich adagio and the atheletic fugue of Beethoven’s Sonata in D major were marvellously integrated and balanced.

    An expansive account of the Delius Sonata brought out the opulence of the instrument.

    DAWM