Harrogate Advertiser February 2014
Festival’s coup for audience on Sunday morning
Julian Lloyd Webber & Jiaxin Cheng, Old Swan Hotel, Harrogate.
The Harrogate International Festivals’ first Spring Sunday Series coffee concert at the Old Swan Hotel, was a real treat. A wonderful performance by one of the world’s leading cellists – none other than Julian Lloyd Webber and his accomplished cello playing wife Jiaxin Cheng. Not forgetting Pam Chowhan on the piano. Wow!
It was to be a glorious musical romp through established cello pieces and other music, possibly written for the female voice, but this morning arranged, in most instances, for two cellos, but interspersed with the odd solo cello and solo piano! How to comment on 21 pieces of music, plus an encore? Not practical, so I will mention just a few of them.
As one might expect most of the items were relatively short otherwise you would have had great difficulty in packing so many pieces into two hours, including an interval. Summer Woods by Ireland was delightful, actually quite a well know piece, Prelude from Shostakovich’s The Gadfly had wonderful harmonies and was a change from The Romance, more normally heard. Bach’s Adagio in G, again well known and exquisitely performed. The Little Beggar Boy by Piazzolla written in memory of a beggar boy who used to come to a restaurant that he frequented, selling roses. The Harvesters by Dvorak – great fun. After the interval Jiaxin played solo Bach’s Prelude & Gigue from Cello Suite No. 1, she is a fine musician in her own right.
Julian Lloyd Webber introduced each piece, giving insights into the origin and the reason he had chosen it. At this point he lost his music, but opted to continue without any apparent problem, such is his ability. The next piece was a delightful play on words – entitled Lost is my Quiet, JLW commented it reflected his disturbed sleep pattern since the arrival of their baby two years ago.
Pam Chowhan was a superb accompanist with the ability to be quietly in the background, but yet a powerful player when the music so required. In this instance she played Rachmaninov’s No. 12 Prelude in G sharp minor with great sensitivity.
We moved on to the family music, as he described it with pieces by his father and famous brother Andrew, including Pie Jesu written in memory of their father’s death – an excellent composition and now very popular.
Humour returned as, for the next piece Sweet and Low by Barnby, they swapped instruments – Jiaxin playing Julian’s Stradivarius! – at the end of the piece she pretended not to give it back to him. For an encore we had a complete change to Bryant’s All I have to do is Dream popularised by the Everly Brothers.
I think this was one of the finest concert performances I have been lucky enough to enjoy, as I know the audience did. The musicianship was beyond criticism. Julian Lloyd Webber did us proud and we loved it.
By George Pyman, Harrogate Advertiser