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Category: Reviews

  • Walton Cello Concerto: BBC Music Magazine

    Critics Choice

    Britten Cello Symphony

    Julian Lloyd Webber

    Philips 454442-2 ****

    Nicholas Williams, music critic, the Independent

    Britten/Walton

    Britten: Cello Symphony

    Walton: Cello Concerto

    Julian Lloyd Webber (cello); Academy of St Martin in the Fields/Neville Marriner Philips 454 442-2 66:35 mins

    The coupling seems obvious, yet is rarely found in the gramophone archives: the Britten Cello Symphony and Walton Cello Concerto are complementary opposites. The link on this disc is Julian Lloyd Webber’s distinctive sound which finds resonant depth in both. Lloyd Webber discovers something new in the Walton – or so it seems, such is his artistry. In the Britten, superb orchestral playing reveals lines and colours undiscovered by previous recordings. (Reviewed October 1997)

  • Walton Cello Concerto: Hi-Fi News & Record Review

    Hi-Fi News & Record Review November 1997

    Britten Cello Symphony

    BRITTEN: Symphony for Cello & Orchestra

    Julian Lloyd webber (vlc)/ASM/Marriner

    Philips 454 442-2

    Despite alternative versions, this is solo interpretation and orchestral collaboration par excellence. Lloyd Webber, whose cello tone reminds me of the long departed Beatrice Harrison’s, has a special affinity with British composers; and Marriner always comes up trumps in concerts and at sessions where great events are the order of the day. Since Rostropovich’s epic-making world premiere of the Britten, other artists have struggled to emulate the Russian’s visionary performances that we heard back in 1963. This one clarifies two things for me: what a fine work it really is, when the balance of instrumentation is so finely judged and the music is allowed to flow naturally; and just how advanced recording techniques can enhance your musical enjoyment. There are no top-heavy emphases in tuttis, or those solo spotlights that take attention away from the score, but a crystal-clear realization of all this complex work demands.

    Lloyd Webber’s description of the Walton’s ‘Mediterranean warmth and sexuality’ became the subject of a three-way Radio 3 discussion recently. Although Harrell/Rattle [EMI] and Cohen/Litton [Decca] equate the solo cello’s sonorous beauties to Walton’s sumptuously rich orchestral textures, Lloyd Webber’s half-veiled tones balance perfectly with Marriner’s natural, warm-styled accompaniment. This is a glowing account of the work in which dynamics are scrupulously observed throughout, and with no sense of lingering during slower passages – for example, in the first of the three cello cadenzas, (ii) four before 19, Lloyd Webber alters his ‘rubato ad lib’ to an accelerando, in order to match the ‘poco meno mosso’ orchestral re-entry and the overall Allegro appassionato tempo direction.

    An essential addition to the ever-growing British Music discography.

    Newman

  • Walton Cello Concerto: BBC Music Magazine

    1997

    Britten: Cello Symphony

    Walton: Cello Concerto

    Julian Lloyd Webber (cello);

    Academy of St Martin in the Fields/Neville Marriner

    Philips 454 442-2 66:35 mins

    These are starkly contrasted works, each written for great Russian cellists: the warmly Romantic Walton Concerto for Gregor Piatigorsky, and Britten’s dark and angst-ridden Cello Symphony composed for Rostropovich. The solo part in the Britten is more truly integrated into the work’s fabric – the material is symphonic in weight and treatment, thus justifying the title.

    Listeners need not be deterred by the sombre nature of the Britten. Repeated hearings are rewarded by the revelation of many riches -like Britten’s brilliantly inventive and arresting orchestrations using unusual combinations such as double bassoon, bass clarinet, tuba and percussion. The Allegro maestoso first movement, for instance, ends with the disconsolate cello, pizzicato, crushed between a plaintively wailing clarinet and the seethings of the lower-pitched instruments sounding like the snarlings of beasts from hell. And, in the Adagio, there is a magical passage where the cello meditates, remotely, over lightly brushed cymbals and distant trumpets before its gentle musings are crushed by cruel, relentless percussion hammerings. Lloyd Webber plays out Britten’s dark drama with deep conviction and he is ardent in the better-known, sunnier and vivacious Walton Concerto. Marriner and his Academy players give virtuoso performances in support.

    Ian Lace

    PERFORMANCE *****

    SOUND *****

  • Walton Cello Concerto

    Classic FM Magazine September 1997

    It took an altogether more volcanic temperament of English music than Finzi’s to engender Britten’s darkly tremendous Cello Symphony (Philips 454 442-2). Julian Lloyd Webber’s fabulous performance is one of the few I’ve heard that’s at all comparable to that of Rostropovich, for whose transcendent expertise and power the work was written. Lloyd Webber is just as convincing in the wry and romantically sun-dappled sound-world of Walton’s Cello Concerto. Fine accompaniments and ultra-clear recordings set the seal on an exceptional disc.

    Malcolm Hayes

  • Walton Cello Concerto

    Daily Mail 8th August 1997

    Julian scores a rare treat

    BRITTEN CELLO SYMPHONY & WALTON CELLO CONCERTO: Julian Lloyd Webber, (Philips)

    IF ANYONE is going to make Benjamin Britten’s Cello Symphony and William Walton’s Cello Concerto popular, it is Julian Lloyd Webber.

    Both are late works by their composers and both have suffered from neglect – in the Britten’s case, because of a certain air of East Anglian bleakness. The Walton, on the other hand, has always been considered a sort of poor relation of the much earlier Viola Concerto and Violin concerto.

    Lloyd Webber’s new disc is beautifully recorded and he is sympathetically accompanied by Sir Neville Marriner with the St Martin Academy. JLW would be the first to admit that he cannot match the oversized personality of his hero Rostropovich, for whom the Britten work was written. But in his own more restrained, classical fashion, he comes even closer in some ways to the quiet kind of Englishness represented by Britten.

    The Walton is beautifully played by both cellist and orchestra and goes straight to the top of the all-too-few recommendations for this work.

    Even more than some of the foreigners who have played the concerto, JLW and Sir Neville bring out the Mediterranean quality of Walton’s scoring. *****

    Tully Potter

  • Walton Cello Concerto

    Classic CD Choice August 1997

    BRITTEN Cello Symphony, Op. 68 (1963)

    Julian Lloyd Webber (cello); Academy of St Martin in the Fields/Sir Neville Marriner. Philips 454 442-2

    *****

    ‘Exceptional performances by Julian Lloyd Webber, particularly of the Britten’

    Britten’s Cello Symphony was completed soon after his War Requiem, whose dark sound-world and mood of embattled radiance it shares. It’s a massive challenge to its soloist – technically, of course, but even more so in terms of sustaining such a huge musical trajectory.

    It helps if you’re Rostropovich, for whom the Symphony was written. He’d asked Britten for a brilliant concerto, and instead got something rather different: a four-movement work integrating a solo cello and orchestra in nearly unprecedented style. Nearly, but not quite, for Berg’s Violin Concerto takes a similar approach. Britten admired Berg, with whom he’d once hoped to study, and the Cello Symphony responds to the remarkable example of Berg’s work (a Violin Symphony in all but name).

    Rostropovich apart, Julian Lloyd Webber remains one of the few players around who are truly on terms with the Cello Symphony’s extreme demands. As ever, the sound he makes here is not in itself huge, but its production is wonderfully true, accurate, and gloss-free, so that the notes really speak for themselves. The result, combined with a fine orchestral contribution, is a listening experience that’s powerfully moving. For good measure there’s also Walton’s Concerto, in its own way as true to its composer’s mastery as the Symphony is to Britten’s. Lloyd Webber deftly catches its shadowed-sunlight mood, although not even he can get its stop-go finale quite to hang together. The recordings, though better suited to the cool climate of Britten’s East Anglia than the warmth of Walton’s Italy, are strikingly clear and vivid.

    Malcolm Hayes

  • Walton Cello Concerto

    Gramophone August 1997

    Britten Cello Symphony/Walton Cello Concerto

    EDITOR’S CHOICE

    Philips

    Britten Symphony for Cello and Orchestra, Op.68.

    Walton Concerto for Cello and Orchestra.

    Julian Lloyd Webber (vc); Academy of St Martin in the Fields / Sir Neville Marriner.

    Philips CD 454 442-2PH (71 minutes: DDD).

    Britten – selected comparisons:

    Wallfisch, ECO, Bedford (1/86) (CHAN) CHAN8363 Rostropovich. ECO, Britten (9/89) (LOND) 425 100-2LM Isserlis, CLS, Hickox (2/92) (EMI) CDM7 63909-2

    Rostropovich, Moscow PO. Britten (5/97) (EMI) CZS5 72016-2

    Walton – selected comparisons:

    Wallfisch, LPO. Thomson (9/91) (CHAN) CHAN8959 HarreI!, CBSO, Rattle (12/92) (EMI) CDC7 54572-2

    Cohen, Bournemouth SO, Litton (10/95) (LOND) 443 450-2LH

    A British pair

    This is an inspired coupling of two works, closely parallel in the careers of their composers, each reflecting the mastery of a great Russian cellist (respectively Rostropovich and Piatigorsky), but which could hardly be more sharply contrasted. Julian Lloyd Webber in an illuminating note makes that very point, and the passionate commitment of his playing in both works confirms his views. Not only is the power of each piece fully laid out, the beauty – not just in the lusciously romantic Walton Concerto, but in the grittily taxing Britten piece too – is presented as never before on disc, helped by sumptuous, beautifully balanced sound from the Philips team of Dutch engineers. On any count this is the finest, most formidable disc that Julian Lloyd Webber has yet given us.

    Anyone wanting this unique coupling need not hesitate, but my intensive comparisons confirm that both performances are more than competitive with the outstanding versions I have listed above, all with different couplings. In the Britten it almost goes without saying that, like his rivals, Lloyd Webber cannot quite command the power and thrust of the dedicatee, Rostropovich, not just in his original studio recording with Britten and the ECO, but in the Russian radio recording of the world premiere in 1964, which has just appeared as part ofa 13-disc EMI set, “The Russian Recordings, 1950-74”.

    That said, Lloyd Webber and Sir Neville Marriner, helped by the far greater dynamic range of the recording, not only convey the extraordinary originality of Britten’s scoring in a way beyond any rival, but find an extra expressive warmth. That is so not just in such reflective moments of the long sonata-form first movement as the tranquillo passage at track 1, 2’30” or the pianissimo lusingando at 4’50”, but in the relentless build-up of the Adagio third movement, where the recording superbly brings out the rasp of the brass, including tuba. It is worth noting, too, that Lloyd Webber takes the mercurial second movement even faster than the others, with an even lighter touch. On the Wallfisch version I was disappointed that the soloist is placed so far forward that orchestral detail is masked, and that the EMI sound for the Isserlis is relatively dim.

    Wallfisch’s Walton issue from Chandos, by contrast, is the keenest rival to the new disc both in terms of sound and interpretation, and hearing it again reminds me that he studied it with its dedicatee, Piatigorsky. Yet Lloyd Webber is just as individual and imaginative in his phrasing they both outshine the others, for example, in the deeply meditative statement of the theme in the variation finale – and the sumptuousness of the Philips sound makes this if anything even warmer than the Chandos, while the sparky complexity of the central Scherzo is thrillingly clear and trans¬parent. This is a performance which fully confirms this post-war work as vintage Walton, the equal of his pre-war concerto masterpieces for viola and violin. In both the Walton and the Britten Lloyd Webber makes light of the formidable technical difficulties. Plainly this has been a project that has involved him deeply, and he has been wonderfully well served by his collaborators.

    EG

  • Walton Cello Concerto

    Mail on Sunday 13th July 1997

    Walton Cello Concerto/Britten Cello Symphony Julian Lloyd Webber

    Phlhps 454442-2 ****

    Julian Lloyd Webber has joined forces with conductor Sir Neville Marriner to produce this moving new recording of two great cello works. For the Britten, Lloyd Webber makes his cello hum with questing intensity and dark-hued rumblings. He imbues the work with a warped sweetness and a rugged grandeur which brings out the work’s rather Russian feel (it was, after all, written for Rostropovich). Marriner dictates a slow, inexorable tread – the sad, plangent melodies are deliberately trampled underfoot Even the sense of calm in the last movement here seems illusory – a submission, not a resolution. In the Walton too, there is a haunting, unsettling quality to the performance. A disc to test your emotions and your nerve.

    James Inverne

  • Walton Cello Concerto

    The Guardian 11th July 1997

    Britten: Cello Symphony;

    Lloyd Webber/ASMF/Marriner (Philips 454 442-2) ****

    Julian Lloyd Webber, in his finest recording yet, neatly couples two works that, though closely parallel in the careers of their composers, could hardly be more sharply contrasted. Not only does he bring out the power of each work, but the beauty too, both in the lusciously romantic Walton concerto, and in the grittily taxing Britten piece, helped by sumptuous recorded sound. In the Britten, the extraordinary originality of the scoring is presented as never before on disc, while the Walton, in this passionate performance, is confirmed as fully equal to his pre-war concerto masterpieces for viola and violin.

    Edward Greenfield

  • Walton Cello Concerto

    The Independent On Sunday November 1987

    Britten Cello Symphony Walton Cello Concerto

    CLASSICAL

    Julian Lloyd Webber/ Academy of St Martins/ Neville Marriner.

    (Philips, CD.)

    These two British classics of the modern cello repertory were written more or less contemporaneously (six years apart) and both for Russian virtuosi (Rostropovich, Piatigorsky) but otherwise they speak for different worlds. The Britten is hard with knuckle whitening tension: brittle, angular and beaten by East Coast winds into one of his least lovable though most remarkable scores. The Walton has its share of nervous drive, but is essentially a wistful, late-Romantic soundscape of a warm Italian summer night – as experienced, no doubt, from the terrace of the composer’s home on Ischia. And Lloyd Webber has the measure of both: a specialist in (even expat) British repertory who feels the music deeply and communicates with passion. In the Britten you won’t find the bite of Rostropovich’s attack in his definitive Sixties recording; and in the Walton it may be that Lynn Harrell’s version for EMI has more muscular power. But no one plays more beautifully than Julian Lloyd Webber, or with more commitment. His instinctive sense of line and all-round musicality are admirable. And with truly opulent support from Marriner, who isn’t afraid to indulge a spot of spangled, starlit magic when the opportunity presents itself, he finds just the right tempo for the opening of the Walton (not easy) and manages the last movement’s tricky shift of gear into the reprise of the big tune with seamless elegance.

    Michael White