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Category: Reviews

  • Haydn Cello Concerto in C: Daily Telegraph Chipping Campden

    The Daily Telegraph 23rd May 2008

    The Chipping Campden Festival

    Haydn Cello Concerto Review

    Wistfully elegiac: Festival Academy Orchestra

    With its glowing, picture-postcard setting, Chipping Campden in rural Gloucestershire is the perfect place for summer music-making. Now in its seventh year, the town’s festival has definitively carved out a niche for itself, attracting top-flight artists to play in the spacious and acoustically favourable St James’s Church.

    It has also secured a devoted audience, which packed the pews and additional plastic seating for this programme centred on Handel and Haydn, with the world premiere of a new piece for cello and orchestra by Howard Goodall.

    One of the festival’s innovations this year is the formation of the Chipping Campden Festival Academy Orchestra. Thomas Hull will be familiar to many in the music business as a leading artists’ manager, but here he also showed his mettle as conductor of an ensemble that was modestly sized but apt for the Baroque and Classical repertoire.

    It was made up of professional players and gifted students, the proportions apparently being half and half, and opened the concert with a performance of Handel’s Concerto Grosso Op 6 No 5 that had stately grandeur in the overture and a crisp way of dealing with the close-knit passagework of the faster movements.

    The same measure of vitality and keen observance of scale underpinned Haydn’s C major Cello Concerto, in which Julian Lloyd Webber, though invisible from my vantage point, established an aurally appreciable bond with the orchestra, combining elegance and geniality with bracing rhythms and buoyancy.

    He was also soloist in And the Bridge is Love by Howard Goodall, well-known for his TV, film and stage scores and now the country’s national ambassador for singing. Singing was at the heart of the essentially lyrical And the Bridge is Love, not perhaps a work that is going to stop the world in its tracks but one that is easy on the ear in its wistfully elegiac way.

    Beginning in a shrouded atmosphere vaguely reminiscent of the mood Rachmaninov evokes in The Isle of the Dead, and with the harp as a prominent feature, it lightens its spirits in the manner Elgar might have adopted, gently passing a motif between cello and orchestra and creating an aura of mild reflectiveness.

    More robust material followed in the shape of Haydn’s Symphony No 104, given a performance that combined exhilarating drive with poignant shaping in the slow movement, and identifying an orchestra that deserves to become one of the festival’s prized assets.

    Geoffrey Norris

  • Haydn Cello Concerto in C: The Independent Chipping Campden

    The Independent 27th May 2008

    The Chipping Campden Festival

    Haydn Cello Concerto Review

    The Chipping Campden annual music festival is something of a phenomenon. Built up over the past few years by the local wine merchant (and the former pianist) Charlie Bennett, it has attracted world-class artists such as Alfred Brendel, the Borodin Quartet and, for this concert, Julian Lloyd Webber. For the first time, it has its very own Festival Academy orchestra made up of a mix of professionals and students. Very good they are, too. On this occasion, they were conducted by Thomas Hull and led by the delightful young violinist Ruth Rogers. Handel’s Concerto Grosso curtain-raiser was performed with panache, if not the utmost precision.

    Doubtless part of the reason so many great musicians are beating a path to this gem of a Cotswold town is the wonderful acoustics of St James’ Church the Borodin Quartet reportedly said they were the best they had experienced in Britain.

    The acoustics are as clear as a bell, especially when the church is packed to the rafters. This makes it a particular pleasure to hear an artist of the calibre of Julian Lloyd Webber negotiating the notoriously difficult finale of Haydn’s Cello Concerto in C major with such extraordinary ease. Before that, he had enraptured the audience with his breathtaking control of dynamics in the wonderful slow movement that dares to tread paths that are never predictable.

    The best was yet to come with the world premiere of Howard Goodall’s And the Bridge Is Love for cello, strings and harp. Haunting and deeply emotional, it was beautifully played by Lloyd Webber, who has made a habit of promoting new music, and came over as an intensely personal statement, apparently dedicated to a friend of the composer who died last year at the age of 16. While contemporary in expression, it is written in a recognisably British style, reminiscent of the very best string pieces by Bridge, Britten and Tippett and with a strong hint of Vaughn Williams no mean achievement. I predict that Goodall’s heartfelt lament could easily enjoy a permanent place in the repertoire.

    Thomas Hull then put the Festival Orchestra through its paces with a rousing account of Haydn’s Symphony No 104, “The London”, although the metropolis never felt so far away. There were beaming faces all round and a happy throng afterwards in the local hostelry opposite St James’.

    With its beautiful setting, great acoustics and focus on artistic excellence, the Chipping Campden Music Festival has fast become an enviable role model.

  • Haydn Cello Concerto in C: Music Web Chipping Campden

    Music Web International May 2008

    Chipping Camden Festival 2008

    Haydn Cello Concerto Review

    You might not regard the Cotswolds as a hotbed of musical activity, but the Chipping Campden Music Festival could well change your mind. Between the 13th and 24th of May, this year the small North Cotswold town hosted concerts by artists of the calibre of Boris Berezovsky, Emmanuel Ax, Midori, the Nash Ensemble and the Sixteen, not forgetting the Festival’s president, Paul Lewis.

    The Festival took a big step forward this year with the inauguration of its own Festival Academy Orchestra. The idea behind the orchestra is partly educational – to enable recently qualified musicians to gain experience by playing with seasoned professionals – hence its title. However, it certainly did not sound like a training orchestra, and this is in large measure thanks to the sterling efforts of conductor Thomas Hull who succeeded in coaxing some polished playing from the ensemble, and even included a world premiere in the first of the concerts.

    This was Howard Goodall’s And the Bridge is Love for cello and strings, composed in memory of a teenage cellist he knew who died tragically last year. The title is a quotation from Thornton Wilder’s novel, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, about the collapse of a bridge in Peru in 1714 which killed five peoplea and the composition takes the form of an elegy attempting to find meaning in tragedy. As the music moves from a mood of despair towards a more optiminstic conclusion there are moments of great beauty. Goodall is well known for championing music in schools, and this piece is designed to be playable by young musicians. However, it is by no means a simple work, and its first performance was made particularly memorable by Julian Lloyd Webber’s sensitive handling of the solo part. Lloyd Webber also gave a stunning performance of Haydn’s Cello Concerto in C. He and the orchestra were able to achieve some remarkably quiet pianissimos in the Adagio thanks to the near-perfect acoustics of St James’ Church.

    The Orchestra’s second concert was devoted largely to Mozart, opening with a splendid performance of the Overture to The Abduction from the Seraglio with all the exotic Turkish percussion effects. Although Mozart professed to disdain the flute, his Flute Concerto in G contains some delightful music and it could not have had a better advocate than Emily Beynon who gave a sparkling performance of it with gentle support from the Orchestra.

    However. the Austrian composer’s works tended to be eclipsed by Jonathan Dove’s Magic Flute Dances which draws on themes from the opera. “I thought this could be an opportunity to let the flute out of its box, not to play the music it plays in the opera, but to play the music it has heard other people sing,” writes the composer. With its varied rhythms and changes of tempo this work offered plenty of challenges to both soloist and orchestra. Emily Beynon, who commissioned the piece, surmounted the challenges with playing of extraordinary brilliance, and the orchestra rose to the occasion under Thomas Hull’s alert direction.

    Now in its seventh year the Chipping Campden Festival has grown from modest beginnings into a musical event of national significance.

    Roger Jones

    Location: Greyfriars Kirk

    Star rating: ****

  • Haydn Cello Concerto in C: The Herald Edinburgh

    The Herald 23rd August 2008

    Edinburgh Youth Orchestra String Ensemble

    Haydn Cello Concerto Review

    Location: Greyfriars Kirk

    Star rating: ****

    Covering new ground in several different ways, the first Fringe performance of the Edinburgh Youth Orchestra String Ensemble also featured the Scottish premiere of a new work for cello and strings by Howard Goodall, And the Bridge is Love. As both director and soloist, cellist Julian Lloyd Webber already has a long relationship with the ensemble, conducting them with knowing precision, as well displaying his own talents as a soloist.

    A fascinating programme also included Haydn’s Cello Concerto in C, a piece which remained undiscovered for almost 200 years until 1961. Played with refined composure, the fine balance between ensemble and soloist was achieved.

    As conductor, Lloyd Webber also directed a work by his father, William Lloyd Webber, which was performed with zeal by the ensemble, bringing rich syrupy sounds from the cellos and ethereal tones from the violins. A select elite from a talented group of young musicians, Edinburgh Youth Orchestra String Ensemble promises to be a group to watch in the ever-expanding youth music scene in Scotland.

    Miranda Heggie

    Location: Greyfriars Kirk

    Star rating: ****

  • Haydn Cello Concerto in C

    The Plymouth Herald April 2009

    Concert marks end of an era

    THEY may have had fewer than 20 players, but the European Union Chamber Orchestra, under the assured leadership of Matthias Wollong, filled the hall with an opulently vibrant and full-blooded sound, whilst still able to play with the subtlest of pianissimos whenever the music demanded.

    Mendelssohn’s Symphony in B minor clearly demonstrated the strength and richness of the string section, where the balance was felt exactly right with just the single double bass. Augmented by pairs of horns and oboes, the players were joined by Julian Lloyd Webber, who then gave a superb account of Haydn’s C major Cello Concerto. Virtuosity was always at the forefront, especially in the rapid scales of the finale, all despatched with great precision and rock-solid intonation, but Julian’s playing was further enhanced by a most sensitive use of dynamics, and his gloriously rich singing-tone.

    The strings gave an especially poignant reading of Tchaikovsky’s rarely-heard Elegy in G, before being joined once more by the winds for an exhilarating performance of Mozart’s Symphony No 29.

    The encore, the finale from Haydn’s Symphony No 64, could, however, prove unknowingly prophetic. With its nickname, Tempora mutantur, or Times are changing, it signalled the end of three years of top orchestral concerts coming to the city and, with little immediate hope of any further funding, could very well mean it’s a change for the worse!

  • Haydn Cello Concerto in C

    Birmingham Post 21st October 2010

    Haydn Cello Concerto

    Orchestra of the Swan, at Birmingham Town Hall

    The Orchestra of the Swan has fine-tuned its act to such a pitch of perfection that it would be very difficult to find any ways in which it could improve the presentation of its concerts.

    Its opening concert of its third season as artists-in-residence at Birmingham Town Hall displayed so many qualities: an informal, audience-embracing pre-concert discussion from the stage; a cleverly-constructed programme combining the little-known (including contemporary with a human face) with the well-loved; a remarkable standard of performance and conducting (David Curtis); and the appearance of two wonderful soloists, cellist husband-and-wife Mr and Mrs Julian Lloyd Webber.

    And the result of all this was a packed auditorium last Wednesday afternoon, embracing all age-groups, including those who whether because of age or disability are reluctant to brave the city centre in the evening.

    Handel’s Arrival of the Queen of Sheba,lively and expectant, was reflected in Alec Roth’s sad, tender Departure of the Queen of Sheba. Over camel-clopping string accompaniments, oboe (Victoria Brawn) and cor anglais (Louise Braithwaite) intertwine in an erotic and regretful farewell, before Sheba the oboe reluctantly leaves the stage. The piece drew huge applause.

    A well-established “Farewell” came with Haydn’s Symphony no. 45, tautly delivered, not least its quirky Minuet movement, and then, during the gracious coda to the finale, wittily accommodating space for the gracious departure of instrumentalists turn by turn (Haydn’s musicians had wanted to go back home to Vienna), and even the conductor, leaving two forlorn violinists to turn the lights out.

    As for the soloists, Julian Lloyd Webber evidently enjoyed his crisp and lyrical chamber music-like collaboration with his orchestral colleagues in Haydn’s C major Cello Concerto.

    He was joined by Jiaxin Cheng in Vivaldi’s dark, earthy G minor Concerto for two cellos, and what a tremendous, like-minded and like-articulating couple they made — and this particular partnership was their first in public together.

  • Haydn Cello Concerto in C: St George’s Bristol

    Julian Lloyd Webber and the EU Chamber Orchestra at St George’s, Bristol

    20th April 2012

    The European Union is not something one would normally expect to be associated with music, but their chamber orchestra is exceptional. Formed in 1981, they now have a worldwide reputation as musical ambassadors. Opening an evening of style and grace at St George’s, Bristol with Handel’s Arrival of the Queen of Sheba, the orchestra gave an air of confidence. Not only were they incredibly unified, but they had a cheery disposition on stage; smiling and connecting with each other through the music. From the third act of Handel’s oratorio Solomon, the celebratory nature of this work started the night off with a bang. It provided a clever welcome to Julian Lloyd Webber as musical royalty.

    The programme for the evening was a mixture of well-known classical works, from Bach’s Air on a G string, to Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings. The Adagio was spine-tingling; being one of those pieces where you daren’t breath through fear of making a noise and ruining the sheer perfection of it all. The suspended notes give the piece a melismatic quality that keeps the listener in suspense due to its use of unusual, ever-changing time signatures. The icing on the cake was an ambiguous final note that just left you wanting more and, despite Barber having composed a Molto allegro to follow in the quartet version and answer the open-ended quality of this piece, it was nice to hear it on its own.

    The star of the night, Julian Lloyd Webber is widely held to be one of the leading cellists of his generation. His story as a musician started at the age of sixteen with a scholarship to the Royal College of Music, after which he completed his studies in Geneva under the renowned French cellist Pierre Fournier. The sound of his ‘Alexandre Barjansky’ Stradavarius cello (c. 1690) has a unique quality with subtle nuances that allowed Lloyd Webber to give the audience a personal performance. He was so completely involved in the music it was almost as though you could see him humming the Haydn Concerto in C major in his head. The Air on a G string is a tricky piece to perform as not only is it extremely well known, it is all on one string, which gives it a romantic, relaxed feel by sliding smoothly between notes. Lloyd Weber’s interpretation of the concerto was understated and elegant and met with a great response from the audience. He played as though he was relating to a personal memory in both pieces and his performance could be described as cerebral and intellectual. Many soloists will move around wildly with the music whereas Lloyd Webber gave a tight performance straight from his heart and imagination. On stage, he demonstrated the true power of his knowledge of the music.

    The night was nicely rounded off with an orchestral encore of Handel’s Water Music Suite no. 1 in F. This was a pleasant piece, full of optimism and acting as a coda to an evening of captivating musical works. Whilst Julian Lloyd Webber gave a fantastic performance it was the European Union Chamber Orchestra that stood out (and literally stood up) throughout the entire performance. All credit to them and their director Jerome Akoka (lead violin) for an excellent evening.

    Alexandra Hamilton-Ayres

  • Grieg Cello Sonata

    Gramophone Good CD guide

    The links between Grieg and Delius are many, which makes this a very apt coupling. Lloyd Webber is splendidly matched by Bengt Forsberg. The Grieg Sonata prompts magnetic playing with light and shade, helped by not having the cello spotlit. The mystery of the opening is intensified and the pianissimos are daringly extreme.

  • Grieg Cello Sonata

    Penguin Guide to CDs

    In their coupling of Delius and Grieg cello music, Lloyd Webber and Forsberg give a magnetic performance of the Grieg sonata. With plenty of light and shade, the pianissimos are daringly extreme, magically so in the central slow movement with its haunting quotation from Grieg’s Homage march.

  • Grieg Cello Sonata

    The Strad June 1998

    Lloyd Webber and Forsberg have a partnership that ideally complements their interpretations. For the Grieg, Lloyd Webber totally changes his approach and tone quality, the gentle lyricism of the Intermezzo perfectly captured. His view of the sonata is more introverted than normal. DAVID DENTON