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

Category: Reviews

  • Holst Invocation

    Music Web International 2nd November 2008

    Holst ‘Invocation’ review

    Holst, Coles, Butterworth: Salomon Orchestra conducted by Martyn Brabbins, Cheltenham Town Hall. 2.11.2008 (RJ)

    “The most overwhelming event of my life.” This was how Gustav Holst described a Festival of his music organised by his home town of Cheltenham back in 1927. If he were to return today he would be even more overwhelmed: his birthplace has become the Holst Birthplace Museum and earlier this year Sir Mark Elder unveiled a statue of him close to Cheltenham Town Hall.

    The Salomon Orchestra’s concert, entitled Homage to Holst, sought to recreate that “overwhelming event”, though not in its entirety. The 1927 Festival had included The Somerset Rhapsody, The Fugal Concerto, The Perfect Fool and The Planets. Homage to Holst left out all but The Planets included instead works by two of his contemporaries plus Holst’s own Invocation for cello and orchestra Op 19, No 2.

    The Invocation, composed in 1905, lay forgotten for decades. Fortunately it has found a champion in Julian Lloyd Webber who gave a very personal and expressive account of it. The solo cello begins and ends the work in a meditative vein and fragments of the theme are then taken up by the orchestra. Some of the passages had a strong late Romantic feel – more Elgar than Holst – but the Invocation was beautifully played and deserves to be heard more often.

    Butterworth was represented in this concert by his idyllic The Banks of Green Willow based on folk music. Cecil Coles, by contrast, is hardly a household name. He was another talented composer who worked with Holst at Morley College before going off to the First World War to meet the same fate as Butterworth and so many others of that generation.

    Holst wrote on him that “his genuine love and talent for music ….. worked wonders at a time when wonder of that sort were badly needed”. Such a recommendation clearly inspired conductor Martyn Brabbins to include Coles’ Overture to The Comedy of Errors in the programme. This proved to be an ambitious work of some distinction, full of interesting ideas and imaginative orchestration.

    It also served to demonstrate how revolutionary Holst’s Suite: The Planets must have sounded at the time it was composed. Mars the Bringer of War still has the power to terrify and Martyn Brabbins’ forceful conducting of its dark powerful rhythms was uncompromising. But just as compelling was the depiction of Venus and the quicksilver atmosphere of Mercury.

    It was difficult to resist the good-humoured, brassy musical attractions of Jupiter, and the dissonance of Saturn was particularly evocative leading to a serenity of sorts. There were plenty of high jinks in Uranus, while in Neptune the music eventually dissolved into the ether by courtesy of the ladies of Cheltenham Bach Choir.

    This was a spellbinding performance made all the more remarkable by the fact that the Salomon, now in its 45th year, is not a professional orchestra. However Martyn Brabbins, currently its president, appeared not to have noticed and drove his musicians hard throughout. But they are obviously used to his demands. In 2003, for instance, he conducted them in the whole Beethoven symphonic cycle in the space of one day, and repeated the feat with all the Tchaikovsky symphonies the following year.

    The Salomon Orchestra may be amateurs, but their playing sounded thoroughly professional. They also brought something extra to the music – a sense of enthusiasm, commitment and adventure that you do not always find in the ranks of professional symphony orchestras. I like to feel Holst would have been overwhelmed by this concert. However, as one who did so much to encourage amateur music making, he would surely have been delighted with the quality and dedication of these fine musicians.

    Roger Jones

  • Haydn Cello Concerto in D

    The Times November 1981

    Queen Elizabeth Hall

    The ‘Haydn’ was a cello concerto. But this was no true novelty, just the resurrection of a feeble piece long known and long rejected from the Haydn canon (the misleading programme note notwithstanding). Some think it the work of the obscure G.B. Costanzi. Never mind: It allowed us to hear the remarkable artistry of Julian Lloyd Webber whose virile tone and perceptive phrasing can animate even the dullest series of sequences and whose sure technique can justify a very naughty cadenza.

    Stanley Sadie

  • Haydn Cello Concerto in D

    The Irish Times 21st June 1982

    Great Irish Houses Festival ends

    Serenade for Strings in E min. op 20 – Elgar

    Music for Castletown – Wilson

    Cello Concerto No 4 in D, H.Vllb/4 Haydn

    Symphony No. I in E flat, K 16 Mozart

    THIS year’s Festival in Great Irish Houses came to an end on Saturday night at Castletown with a concert by the New Irish Chamber Orchestra conducted by Bryden Thomson.

    An elegant performance of the Elgar serenade depends upon carefully-thought-out attention to the composer’s immensely detailed markings – and he was, after all, a string player. This performance did not rise to what it might have been, just because the relativities of the phrasing were not realised.

    James Wilson’s new piece was commissioned from the festival thanks to the Arts Council’s commissioning scheme. Not withstanding the use towards the end of “Thugamar fein an samhradh linn,” the work left me with an austere and perhaps overintellectual impression, but I must stress that that was after only a single hearing.

    Mozart’s youthful, if already well-made, first symphony seemed too slight a work with which to bring a festival to a triumphant conclusion, even though Mr Thomson brought out a number of its individual felicities.

    It would have been better to have switched the last two works around, as it turned out, because Julian Lloyd Webber’s performance of this unfamiliar Haydn concerto was of the utmost excitement.

    It is only recently that contemporary copies of it have turned up, the 1894 edition being too heavily edited. It is argued whether it is by Haydn himself or by G. B. Costanzi. On Saturday, I found myself enjoying it much more than I have Haydn’s undoubted cello concertos, but I am quite willing to put this down to a performance of enormous conviction, excitement and outpouring communication by Mr Lloyd Webber, in which he caught up his colleagues into the sort of experience that would have made a great end to any festival.

    By Charles Acton

  • Haydn Cello Concerto in D

    Music and Musicians January 1986

    Haydn Cello Concerto

    One would be delighted to hear Julian Lloyd Webber’s performances of the Haydn C major and D major Cello Concertos with the English Chamber Orchestra (Philips 412 793-1 record; 412793-4 cassette; 412 793-2 compact disc) in the concert hall, and on disc they make an excellent coupling, which leaves Nos 2 and 3 for a subsequent album, although this particular recording was made by RCA and never released by them when they had Lloyd Webber under contract. It was a shrewd move of Philips to buy the tapes, for the result is a very attractive album, intensely musical, with excellent verve in the finales and some highly suitable phrasing from both soloist and orchestra. The cadenzas are, presumably, by Lloyd Webber, and good as they are they are not in the same class as those Britten wrote for Rostropovitch in the C major, but they are rather more in keeping historically than Britten’s.

  • Haydn Cello Concerto in C

    Sydney Morning Herald 14th October 1985

    Haydn Cello Concerto

    “The solo part is agile, diverse in technique and entertaining. Julian Lloyd Webber demonstrated unfailingly his readiness to meet its challenges. In fact, although the performance here of the new Rodrigo concerto appeared to be the principle aim of the concert, its other main achievement was the introduction of an exceptionally gifted virtuoso in Haydn’s C major Concerto.”

    Roger Covell

  • Haydn Cello Concerto in C

    Music and Musicians January 1986

    Haydn Cello Concerto

    One would be delighted to hear Julian Lloyd Webber’s performances of the Haydn C major and D major Cello Concertos with the English Chamber Orchestra (Philips 412 793’1 record; 412793’4 cassette; 412 793’2 compact disc) in the concert hall, and on disc they make an excellent coupling, which leaves Nos 2 and 3 for a subsequent album, although this particular recording was made by RCA and never released by them when they had Lloyd Webber under contract. It was a shrewd move of Philips to buy the tapes, for the result is a very attractive album, intensely musical, with excellent verve in the finales and some highly suitable phrasing from both soloist and orchestra. The cadenzas are, presumably, by Lloyd Webber, and good as they are they are not in the same class as those Britten wrote for Rostropovitch in the C major, but they are rather more in keeping historically than Britten’s.

  • Haydn Cello Concerto in D

    The Japan Times 2nd November 1986

    Elgar and a Haydn Novelty

    By MARCEL GRILLI

    The Japan Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra’s subscription concert, conducted by Jiri Belohlavek, introduced the English cellist, Julian Lloyd Webber, featuring cello concertos by Elgar and Haydn, concluding the 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.VIIb/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 for 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 favourable case for it. (There is a Philips recording of this work, coupled with the fine C major Concerto, another recent Haydn discovery, in winch Lloyd Webber serves both as soloist and conductor of the English Chamber Orchestra).

  • Haydn Cello Concerto in C

    The Daily Yomiuri 6th December 1986

    Webber Shows Natural Cello Ability

    Julian Lloyd Webber’a singularly talented cellist is highly motivated and breaks fresh ground in the field of classical music with his cello, a Stradivarius called ‘Barjansky’ and made around 1698.

    Since 1983 the cellist has been travelling with this cello and an intimate relationship between Webber and ‘Á’Barjansky’ has accordingly developed.

    Webber says ‘Á’Barjansky’ is a difficult and temperamental instrument but he has now developed a personal rapport with it.

    Webber is now at the stage of proving the intrinsic virtue of this exquisite instrument. Following the first successful concert with the program of the concertos of Elgar in E minor and Haydn in D major (Hob VII b-4) with the Japan Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sin Belohlavek on Oct. 22, the next concert was held at Hitomi Memorial Hall on Oct. 24 with the Consort Philharmonic Ensemble under the baton of Katsuhiko Tamaki.

    Although on this day, the ensemble gave a general impression of not responding ideally to the cellist, the soloist’s natural musical ability was fully felt through beautiful and bright tones.

    Haydn’s Cello Concerto No. I in C major (Hob. VII b-1) was a centerpiece of the program, which included short pieces and intermezzi of the ensemble.

    This concerto was discovered in 1961 and first performed in Prague in 1962. It is presumed to have been composed in 176S while another famous concerto in D major (1783) was the only extant work of Haydn’s concertos for cello.

    Haydn left an extensive collection of works in various fields of music, but it is believed that many of his works remain undiscovered

    In this concerto, his clarity and virtuosity in the meticulous parts were musically and flexibly presented. In the slow parts, he demonstrated beautiful quality in allowing the sounds of the cello to be freely expressed. The second movement, the Adamio was the most profoundly moving. From the beginning, the long lyrical lines were finely shaped and until just the end of the final tone of the movement enthralled with its singing cantilena.

    The profound sensitivity in the soft tones was particularly impressive. Here, the ensemble stayed well within acceptable dynamism. ‘ÁAve Maria’ (melody religieuse adaptee au 1er prelude do Bach) by Gounod and ‘Hamabe no Uta’ Song of Seashore) by Tanezo Narita, which is well known among Japanese and is Webbers favorite among the collection of Japanese songs he has heard, were enjoyably presented.

    Bridges ‘Á’Scherzetto” was communicated in natural directness and the vivid nuances were expressed by the contrast of the rich refined sound. Webber is an extraordinary artist. I think we can continue to count on him to pursue excellence.

    By Mitsuko Orr

  • Haydn Cello Concerto in C

    Sydney Morning Herald 13th September 1990

    Jet-setting with loads of style

    AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

    Guest conductor: Richard Hickox

    Soloist: Julian Lloyd Webber, cello

    Music by Haydn. Elgar and Mozart

    Opera House Concert Hall

    MUSICAL jet-setting reached an apogee of absurdity on Monday when British cellist Julian Lloyd Webber flew into Sydney to play the Haydn. C Major Concerto. which takes all of 22 minutes, with the Australian Chamber Orchestra.

    He is doing exactly the same thing in Armidale, Canberra, Hobart, Launceston, Geelong and Melbourne, all within 11 days.

    Yet any impression of extravagance in using an imported sledge hammer to crack a familiar nut was at least partially mollified by his highly individual performance.

    His technique is superb, and there is a sense of eagerness, a swinging freshness in his delivery during fast movements which is mesmeric.

    To the adagio he brought strong contrasts in dynamics, making it unusually romantic. The whole approach was one to make us sit up and take notice.

    The two symphonies on the program were Haydn’s No. 44, nicknamed Trauer (‘Mourning’) because of its consistent seriousness, and Mozart’s No. 33.

    Richard Hickox conducted them with clear signals devoid of showmanship; he is a more matter-of-fact conductor, less overtly idiosyncratic, than Christopher Hogwood, and the result had a certain stolidity.

    The ACO responded more neatly to Haydn than Mozart; the latter had some distinctly unpolished patches.

    In this program, Elgar’s Serenade for Strings seemed rather like a fish out of water, but in some ways it was the prettiest fish of all.

    And it did support a feeling that the greatest strength of the ACO lies in its body of strings.

    FRED BLANKS

  • Haydn Cello Concerto in C

    The Melbourne Age 19th September 1990

    The Melbourne Festival

    Haydn Cello Concerto Review

    ‘Webber, in the Haydn C major Cello Concerto, was thoroughly admirable. Warmly lyrical, superbly shaped, his playing was a complete exhibition of virtuosity subordinated to the quality of music.’