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Category: Reviews

  • Rodrigo Concierto Como Un Divertimento

    November 2009

    Romantic Cello Concertos CD

    JULIAN LLOYD WEBBER: ROMANTIC CELLO CONCERTOS ****

    JOAQUIN Rodrigo is perhaps best known for his popular Concerto de Aranjuez for guitar, but in the 1980s – when he was in his eighties – he wrote a concerto for cellist Julian Lloyd Webber that is every bit as exotic and tuneful. Accordingly, it fits well with the title of Lloyd Webber’s latest disc, Romantic Cello Concertos, and sits easily with the lush and slithering chromaticism of Delius’s concerto and the hot-blooded romanticism of Lalo’s.

    These are a repackaging of earlier separate releases by Lloyd Webber, and so feature different orchestras and conductors. With Vernon Handley and the Philharmonia, he digs deep into the passionate soul of the Delius. With Jesus Lopez-Cobos and the London Philharmonic, the Rodrigo is by far the more perfect and invigorating performance.

  • Rodrigo Concierto Como Un Divertimento

    June 2001

    Julian Lloyd Webber plays the Rodrigo Cello Concerto

    Works by Rodrigo, Villa-Lobos, Lalo, Saint-Saëns, Delius, etc

    Julian Lloyd Webber (cello); LPO/Jesus

    Lopez-Cobos, National PO/Charles

    Gerhardt, Philharmonia Orchestra

    Vernon Handley

    BMG marks Julian Lloyd Webber’s half-century by revisiting some of his memorable RCA recordings of the early Eighties. It’s surprising that the agreeably tuneful concerto written for him in 1979 by Joaquin Rodrigo has not been mote widely embraced by other cellists. Only now, some 19 years after its Royal Festival Hall premiere, has it found its way on to CD, though Lloyd Webber’s performance is just as magnetic as I remembered from LP days, and BMG’s new CD transfer is excellent.

    Disc 1 of this compilation also includes works by Villa-Lobos, Falla, Popper and others, and Lloyd Webber’s nobly measured account of the Lalo Concerto has a degree of purposeful gravitas that commands attentive listening. However, the British works grouped on the second disc reveal Lloyd Webber’s finest interpretative attributes, especially in a reading of the Delius Concerto that’s much the finest since du Pre’s, and arguably more plausible and engrossing for what it leaves to the imagination of the listener. Lloyd Webber’s more introspective style comes closer to capturing the fleeting spirit of the work than does du Pre’s full-on ardour, and the recording is again first class. A hearty birthday feast that’s well worth investigating.

    Michael Jameson

    PERFORMANCE ****

    SOUND ****

  • Rodrigo Concierto Como Un Divertimento

    June 1984

    Julian Lloyd Webber plays the Rodrigo Cello Concerto

    RODRIGO: Cello Concerto. LALO: Cello Concerto in D Minor.

    Julian Lloyd Webber (cello); London Philharmonic Orchestra, Jesus Lopez-Cobos cond.

    RCA ARL1-4665 $10.98

    Performance: Excellent

    Recording: Excellent

    Joaquin Rodrigo’s Cello Concerto was premiered by Julian Lloyd Webber, for whom it was written, in 1982, but it is certainly hard to think of it as a work of the late twentieth century. Except for the orchestration, which is very distinctive and imaginative, the concerto is a light, highly flavored, Spanish-style work of a most traditional character. This is not to deny its charm a quality certainly in short supply these days. The Lalo was written well over a century earlier. Unlike the composer’s Symphonic espagnole for violin and orchestra, it has only a trace or two of Spanish flavor. The first movement is conventional Romantic bombast, but the middle movement, an intermezzo, is quite elegant, and the lively finale is engaging.

    Julian Lloyd Webber is an excellent cellist and makes a fine impression in this music. It was his idea to go to Spain to seek out Rodrigo and convince him to write a concerto, and he has recorded it in fine style.

    E.S.

  • Rodrigo Concierto Como Un Divertimento

    9th February 1984

    Julian Lloyd Webber plays the Rodrigo Cello Concerto

    Works by J. Druckman and J. Rodrigo ‘Toastbrot’ from the Alhambra

    In Berlin the Philharmonic, conducted by Richard Dufallo, performed two greatly contrasted German premieres. It proved to be a bewildering display of past and present in contemporary music and showed the artistic diversity of two modern composers. They gave us Jacob Druckman’s “Aureole” -for a large orchestra, and the Cello Concerto “in the form of a divertimento” by Joaquin Rodrigo, who, at 82, is almost a generation older.

    Druckman, for the ten minutes or so his composition takes to play, uses a huge orchestra. Rodrigo uses a smaller yet more resonant version in an almost indolent yet always highly colourful manner. Druckman gathers the tone colours into a ring-like form with a melodious ‘solitaire’ in the middle: a Bernstein quote from the “Kaddish” Symphony. And it was probably this zeal in paying homage from a composer no longer in the first flush of youth which enthused Bernstein to sponsor the work’s first performance in New York.

    Dufallo is quite a different character who tends to tackle things a little soberly. Musically he presents the works just as they are and not always to their advantage. A little more persuasion to help them along can surely be expended by a conductor without his being suspected of overacting on the rostrum.

    It says a great deal for the elderly Rodrigo’s sparkle that his Cello Concerto held our attentions so enjoyably and Julian Lloyd Webber, who commissioned the work from Rodrigo, played with fire and passion: he is a captivating, masterly performer.

    Rodrigo – whose “Concierto Aranjuez” for guitar has become a world-famous classical bestseller? does not get involved in ‘contemporary’ music, which is understandable at his advanced age. He has continued past it composing melodious, if virtuosic, music. For the cello – traveller in the warm south – he has served a musical bonbon spiced, as it were, a l’espanol.

    Right from the beginning the bolero rhythm is heard and later there is a seguidilla or flamenco-type dance as well, while the orchestra assists the soloist’s nimble fingers with discreet interjections of considerable charm. In the second movement the solo instrument is allowed to do what it was fundamentally created for; it sings abundantly. An Andante Nostalgico, interrupted only by a tortuous cadenza, conjures up moonlit nights over the Alhambra – without the pickpockets and screeching gypsies. After this the finale is devoted once again to the cello’s rousing call of ‘Ole’. An unashamedly entertaining, lightweight piece, the cello repertoire has long lacked a work of this kind. It is as beneficial to the digestion as crisp white ‘toastbrot’ and is good for anyone suffering from heartburn after hearing too much modern music.

    KLAUS GEITEL

  • Rodrigo Concierto Como Un Divertimento

    1st January 1984

    Julian Lloyd Webber plays the Rodrigo Cello Concerto

    Young Cellist Excels in Varied Repertory

    Another young cellist who is making a considerable reputation for himself, particularly in Europe, is Julian Lloyd Webber, a British player who seems to nave a special interest in conservative 20th-century music. The first of his two most recent disks features a work he commissioned in 1979, the “Concierto como un Divertimento” by the Spanish composer Joaquin Rodrigo. This is a slight departure for Rodrigo. While the outer movements retain the kind of Iberian folk flavor that has been an identifying hallmark of Rodrigo’s music of the last 45 years, the central movement features a simple cello melody set over a misty, delicate and almost atonal backdrop. At the center of this unusual movement, he provides an attractive cadenza that moves between plucked guitar-like figuration and bowed chords, and which seems, at its climax, to refer to the cadenza of the “Concierto de Aranjuez,” Rodrigo best known work.

    The Lalo Concerto, although a 19th-century work, is a logical companion piece: Like the Rodrigo, it makes references to typically Spanish melodic materials, while demanding the kind of Romantic expressivity that the cello yields so willingly. Mr. Webber brings a fulsome tone and an understated flair to both works (British RCA RL 25420, digitally imported by International Book and Record).

    He seems even more at home, however, on his second disk, which features neglected works for cello and orchestra by Delius, Hoist and Vaughan Williams (British RCA RS 9010, digital). The Delius is, tor the most part, a bright, leisurely score that abounds in sweeping pastoral writing and lovely, extended cello lines that allow Mr. Webber to display his considerable facility without seeming unduly theatrical. Hoist’s early “Invocation” gives the cellist even sweeter material, and the “Fantasia on Sussex Folk Songs,” composed for Casals, is a lush piece with a surprisingly extroverted cadenza that seems a bit incongruous amid the simplicity of the folk tunes.

    Allan Kozinn

  • Rodrigo Concierto Como Un Divertimento

    7th January 1984

    Julian Lloyd Webber plays the Rodrigo Cello Concerto

    DSO presents British cellist and his new Spanish concerto

    Three debuts ushered in 1984 for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s audience Thursday night at Ford Auditorium.

    The debutantes were Japanese conductor Hiroshi Wakasugi, British cellist Julian Lloyd Webber and the new; cello concerto Spanish composer Joaquin Rodrigo wrote for Lloyd Webber.

    LLOYD WEBBER and the concerto provided more satisfaction than Wakasugi. Commissioned by Lloyd Webber and dedicated to him, the concerto, which the composer titled “Concierto como un Divertimento,” was completed in 1980. Thursday night marked its American debut.

    It is a tasteful work of sunny disposition, with pleasant melodies, vital rhythms, piquant harmonies and logical formal organization. It is also deftly scored – the orchestral accompaniment is of chamber size – and manages to be wholly accessible and considerably fresh at the same time. The performance suffered somewhat from Wakasugi’s often sluggish and tentative orchestral accompaniment, but that may have been due to insufficient rehearsal time.

    LLOYD WEBBER had no such problems. He played the new concerto with conviction and fervor, and with a technique that seems totally secure. He tore through the fiendishly difficult double-stops, rapid scales and bouncing bow passages of the second-movement cadenza with consummate skill, and produced elegantly soulful sound in the major melodic passages scattered through the work. He obviously believes strongly in the concerto’s merit, and made a most convincing case for it.

    The audience response to the concerto was highly favorable, something not normally associated with contemporary pieces. “When was the last time,” I overheard a woman say at intermission, “you heard a modern piece with a melody?”

    Wakasugi, who was born in 1935 and who has made his career primarily with European orchestras,opened the program with Charles Griffes’ orchestration of his 1915 piano piece, “The White Peacock,” And while its vaguely impressionistic measures were detailed with precision, I think the original piano version is stronger.

    THE PROGRAM closed with Schumann’s First Symphony (“Spring”). Everyone knows the problems inherent in Schumann’s four symphonies, especially his clumsy orchestrations and blunt developmental ideas. But the music, given the right interpretation, can transcend those limitations, providing a unique, if eccentric, satisfaction; Wakasugi’s reading didn’t do that. It was frenzied rather than sweet, stodgy rather than playful, overly driven rather than graceful. He controlled the orchestra with more success than he did in the concerto (although his sound balances were often out of kilter), but he missed the special magic this music contains.

    John Guinn

  • Rawsthorne Cello Sonata

    15th December 1987

    Julian Lloyd Webber’s afternoon recital at the Wigmore Hall on Sunday, with pianist Peter Pettinger, brought the first performance of Malcolm Arnold’s Fantasy for solo cello, along with sonatas by Beethoven and Debussy and some other English items. Frank Bridge’s Scherzetto for cello and piano was played, and his haunting little Elegie. Alan Rawsthorne’s Sonata of 1949 made a powerful impression with its cogent argument and dipped manner of musical speech: Rawsthorne has a marvellous way of taking stock neo-romantic rhetoric, stripping away all that is fleshy and false about it, and presenting us with a discourse which is very subtly arresting. Peter Pettinger had rather more to do in this sonata of equals than just give the cellist support, and his solo passages were shapely and striking. Lloyd Webber’s performance was articulate, impassioned, large-toned, persuasive.

    The Arnold new work, his Opus 130 no less (though he has not latterly been producing as copiously as of old), is extremely attractive, quite short, and wholly unpretentious: a continuous unfolding of seven little sections, each vividly characterised and concisely written. The opening Andantino (reprised at the end as the’ seventh section) is broad and declamatory. The following Vivace sports a funny bouncy rhythm reminiscent of “Half a pound of tuppenny rice” which is immediately cut off each time it appears by a mournful lyrical phrase – the effect is peculiar, pointful and, although small-scale, distinctively Arnoldian. The Lento is melodious and, again, mournful (here I thought of the tune of one of the sadder Brahms Hungarian Dances). Next comes a march, then an affecting pizzicato serenade, then another Lento, one of strange melancholy, and finally the opening again, which returns satisfyingly and with, of course, changed significance. The Fantasy is a memorable and rather tearful little opus, a perfect gift to cellists of even average ability: Lloyd Webber’s virtuosity was scarcely taxed by it, but he did it proud.

    Paul Driver

  • Prokofiev Ballade

    October 1998

    Sonate pour violoncelle et piano.

    SERGE PROKOFIEV: Ballade op. 15.

    DIMITRI CHOSTAKOVITCH: Sonate pour violoncelle et piano.

    Julian Lloyd Webber (violoncelle), John McCabe (piano).

    Philips 422 345-2 (CD : 148 F). 1988. Minutage: 57’11”.

    Un magnifique rédial de musique de notre temps, faisant se rencontrer Chostakoviich et Britien, avant qu’une dernière amitié ne les lie dans la vie comme dans leur musique. Julian Lloyd Webber traite avec une égale splendeur leurs deux sonates, pourtant distantes de plus d’un quart de siècle. Ce traitement donne un nouvel éclat à l’Opus 65 de Britten. John McCabe, sans faire oublier le compositeur au piano avec Rostropovitch, s’impose dans le dialogue, tantôt de-bussyste, tantôt pré-classique de cette suite en cinq danses. Lloyd Webber, sans chercher à retrouver le lyrisme enjôleur de Slava, joue le jeu du Dia-logo original, accentue l’hispanisme stylisé du Scherzo-pizvcalo, se souvient de Delius dans l’Elegie; il installe une tension dramatique post-schubenienne, qui donne une réelle consistance à la Marcia, dans sa démarche proche des Pas dans la neige debussystes, ainsi qu’aux abrupts changements de climat du Moto perpétua final. Ce même traitement convient un peu moins bien à la Sonaie très classique de forme de Chostakoviich. Le déroutant Allegro initial exige une grande fluidité de phrasé tout en étant marqué de contrastes sous-jacents, à la manière de l’Opus 65 de Chopin.

    PIERRE-E. BARBIER

    TECHNIQUE C.D. : 6

    Image sombre, manquant de brillant

  • Messiaen ‘Louange a l’eternite de Jesus’

    November 1993

    Messiaen’s ‘Quartet for the End of Time’

    Julian Lloyd Webber (vc); John Lenehan (pf).

    “Lloyd Webber possesses a magnificent rich tone (and instrument). The inclusion of the cello solo from Messiaen’s “Quartet for the End of Time’ was an inspired idea.”

  • Messiaen ‘Louange a l’eternite de Jesus’

    October 1993

    Cello Song

    Julian Lloyd Webber (vc); John Lenehan (pf).

    As the title of this disc implies, all the pieces contained herein are rather in the same slowish- paced, lyrical vein, but their sequence has been cleverly chosen so that there is still plenty of variety to keep the listener’s attention. Some of the items are original cello and piano pieces, others are skilful arrangements, and there is a good mixture ofwell-known and unusual offerings. Elgar’s bassoon Romance translates particularly well to the cello, as do the Brahms, Debussy and Dvoräk songs, and only in the arrangement of Grieg’s piano piece To the Spring did I feel that a cello was a little out of place. The Messaien excerpt is the longest and the most profound item, and it exists quite happily äs an entity away from the rest of the Quatuor.

    Throughout the programme Julian Lloyd Webber plays with exceptional sensitivity, sympathy and tonal beauty – in fact it would be difficult to find better performances of this kind of repertoire anywhere on records of today or yesterday. John Lenehan gives good support, and Philips have provided a mellow, roomy quality of recording.

    Alan Sanders