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Category: Reviews

  • Glass Cello Concerto

    The New York Times 5th December 2004

    Philip Glass: The Concerto Project, Vol.1

    By Allan Kozinn

    Julian Lloyd Webber, cellist; Evelyn Glennie and Jonathan Haas, timpanists; Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Gerard Schwarz.

    Orange Mountain MUSiC 0014; CD

    IN theory, the concerto should be an entirely unsuitable form for Philip Glass. By its nature, it requires a showy virtuosity; Mr. Glass’s music, even in his postMinimalist, neo-Romantic phase, has been about the power of the ensemble rather than the glorification of the soloist.

    But because they are so alien to his style, concertos challenge Mr. Glass to look beyond his customary gestures, and in recent years he has poured some of his best music into them. This pairing of concertos for cello and for timpani is the first in a projected four-disc series.

    The opening bars of the Cello Concerto throw the soloist fully into the spotlight with a twisted Bachian theme, and even as it cycles into repeating melodic cells, its chromaticism is so dense that the music is hardly recognizable as Mr. Glass’s. That novel tee soon vanishes: when the orchestra kicks in, it is with a patch of Mr. Glass’s chugging boilerplate, mid indeed, in both works, whenever the soloists take a break, Mr. Glass reprises old hits: pensive minor-key music from the Satyagraha”-“Akhnaten” era in the slow movement of the Cello Concerto, brassy “Koyaanisqatsi”-style passages in the second movement of the work for timpani.

    Still, the solo lines push into new ground. Julian Lloyd Webber, who commissioned the Cello Concerto, plays its quasi-Bachian passages with suitable vigor, but he is really in his element when Mr. Glass gives him a haunting, lyrical line. These are plentiful, and Mr. Lloyd Webber makes them sing.

    In the Concerto Fantasy for Two Timpanists, Jonathan Haas and Evelyn Glennie create an intricate but hard-driven percussion layer around and within the orchestral fabric. But where they really shine is in a lengthy cadenza that lets them play with their instruments’ tuning, creating outlandish timbres (including one that sounds like whale song played at half speed).

  • Fricker Cello Sonata: Sunday Times 1973

    Fricker Cello Sonata/Purcell Room

    ‘Fricker’s pungent cello and piano sonata was vividly projected by Julian Lloyd Webber and Clifford Benson, the cellist later disporting his warm tone and assured technique in Britten’s First Suite.’

    Felix Aprahamian

  • Elgar Cello Concerto: Birmingham Post

    June 17th 2011

    Orchestra of the Swan, at Birmingham Town Hall

    Orchestra of the Swan’s final concert for this season at Birmingham Town Hall was quite an occasion, with an absolute full house to hear Julian Lloyd Webber, OOTS’ current Associate Artist, play one of his signature works, the Cello Concerto by Elgar.

    Spirits hovered in the air, as the Concerto was part of the first-ever concert given by the CBSO here, Elgar himself conducting, but I think this present performance would have been markedly different from that probably grand rendition.

    Lloyd Webber here shared in what was a heartwarmingly chamber-music collaboration with David Curtis’ orchestra, always alert to what the orchestral musicians were contributing, seamless in unisons, and phrasing with telling delicacy.

    Tempi were bravely reined-back for the soloist’s sometimes hesitant, sometimes reluctant, gloriously beatific utterances. This could have been a mere run-through; soloist, conductor and orchestra ensured that it wasn’t.

    Vaughan Williams’ Wasps Overture, buzzingly alert, and with such noble horns, could perhaps have been balanced more judiciously in its concluding counterpoint, but Brahms’ Second Symphony, some tiny imprecisions of ensemble aside, was a total delight.

    This was a “green” reading of this pastoral symphony, warm, organic in its growth, heroic strings caressing eloquent wind solos. And Curtis’ meticulous rehearsal, on very little time, certainly paid dividends.

    Rating * * * *

    By Christopher Morley

  • Elgar Cello Concerto

    Luister November 1986

    Excerpt from Dutch magazine “Luister” review in November 1986 in which Julian Lloyd Webber’s and Sir Yehudi Menuhin’s recent version of the Elgar Cello Concerto is compared to the re-release of Jacqueline du Pre’s with John Barbirolli.

    …”What a contrast between the tough, masculine, cocky tone of the then 20-year-old Du Pre and the gentle, lyrical, warmly singing tone of Webber. Thanks to this difference, the meditative side of this concerto is given every chance by Webber and Menuhin; dramatics recede to the background. You need Du Pre and Barbirolli for that…yet that wonderfully self-contained and soul-searching interpretation by Menuhin and Webber – there is much to be said for that too. In any case, it gives the concerto a slightly sad, melancholy atmosphere, which certainly does not leave the listener unmoved…”

  • Elgar Cello Concerto: Mail on Sunday

    April 24th 2011

    Julian Lloyd Webber, Anniversary Gala, Royal Festival Hall, London

    *****

    As a postscript to my tribute to Julian Lloyd Webber a fortnight ago, his 60th birthday gala was a joy because of the inspired blend of material, both familiar and unfamiliar.

    Of course, room was found in the first half for Julian’s Elgar Concerto, but then he really let his hair down – and he’s still got a lot of it. There was some Villa-Lobos sexily sung by Danielle de Niese; some amazing Ellington with Cleo Laine throwing off her 83 years with all the charisma of a great trouper; and a beautiful, newly composed piece for cello and strings by the American Eric Whitacre in the best English pastoral tradition.

    Room was also found for tributes to Julian’s father William, whose beautiful Benedictus was radiantly played by Tasmin Little, and birthday greetings from brother Andrew, accompanying Julian and his wife Jiaxin in some Phantom Of The Opera arrangements.

    During a terrific evening Julian proved his versatility over and over again under the benevolent baton of another great friend, Christopher Warren-Green, and a tireless Philharmonia.

    David Mellor

  • Elgar Cello Concerto

    Music and Musicians October 1986

    “Ably and sympathetically abetted by Menuhin, this performance combines character and fidelity, being sensitive, mercurial and moving by turns – a really integrated performance to which I will return again and again.”

  • Elgar Cello Concerto

    Yorkshire Post 10th August 2007

    The music of Edward Elgar has never been so popular as it is today, with a capacity audience in the vast expanses of the International Centre celebrating the composer’s 150th anniversary.

    It had as its main attraction Julian Lloyd Webber as the soloist in the Cello Concerto, his interpretation universally acclaimed, the unforced approach presenting a lucid and often deeply moving account of the composer’s autumnal work.

    The solo part does present technical challenges that many soloists today use as a virtuoso showpiece, Lloyd Webber by contrast being at such ease that he effortlessly marries these moments into the general texture.

    In Owain Arwel Hughes and the Royal Philharmonic, he had ideal partners, always adding to the work’s outgoing colours, yet perfectly balancing their weight with the lyric qualities of the solo line.

    It was the younger Elgar who painted musical pictures of his friends in the Enigma Variations, tempos here nudged along without ever sounding rushed, the dramatic sections never wanting for impact.

    Walton’s Spitfire Prelude and Fugue was lacking in sheer brio, Vaughan Williams’s overture, The Wasps, superbly buzzing with infinite mischief.

    David Denton

    Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Harrogate International Centre

  • Elgar Cello Concerto

    Daily Telegraph 15th September 1986

    The Cello Concerto receives an affectionate, true-to-the-score and altogether admirable performance from Julian Lloyd Webber with the RPO conducted by our senior Elgarian, Sir Yehudi Menuhin. Opinions differ as to Menuhin’s effectiveness as a conductor, but the results of this recording suggest that he has a mind of his own where this composer is concerned.

    His performance of the Variations is no routine run-through. but a considered and sometimes controversial interpretation. I think he perhaps takes the theme too slowly, but at the same time, just listen to the nuances of string tone that he persuades from the KPO. Even in so competitive a field, this issue commands attention.

    MICHAEL KENNEDY

  • Elgar Cello Concerto: Glasgow Herald

    August 6th 2007

    EDINBURGH YOUTH ORCHESTRA, MUSIC HALL

    With Julian Lloyd Webber as soloist, Elgar’s Cello Concerto played to a capacity audience at the opening of this year’s Youth Festival. Garry Walker conducted the Edinburgh Youth Orchestra, which has already built up its own loyal following here.

    The sedate tempo of the opening of the Concerto seemed disconcerting but Lloyd Webber’s performance soon made its point clear. Constant glances between soloist, conductor and orchestra leader made it obvious that Lloyd Webber intended to impress his stamp firmly on the music. With meticulous technical finesse, he pointed up countless fine details in the score, which can be missed. The gentle autumnal glow of the slow movement was totally entrancing.

    The concert opened with the orchestra in fine fettle in Sir Malcolm Arnold’s Four Scottish Dances. The broad humour of the second Dance came across with great verve and in the third Dance the beautifully transparent sound of the upper strings and woodwind playing were both established as a hallmark of this orchestra.

    These aspects of the playing were crucial in the success of Ravel’s orchestral setting of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. As in Malcolm Arnold’s Dances, this score has its moments of humour, though much more subtly expressed. The Edinburgh orchestra caught the abruptly changing moods of the contrasting pictures perfectly, pointed up by some splendid solo playing throughout the orchestra. The percussion section, which sometimes gets taken for granted, was particularly fine. ALAN COOPER

  • Elgar Cello Concerto

    Gramophone July 1986

    ELGAR Cello Concerto. Variations on an original theme, ‘Enigma”. Julian Lloyd Webber (vc);

    Royal Philharmonic Orchestra / Sir Yehudi Menuhin. Philips digital

    There are some musicians, I am told, who question the abilities of Julian Lloyd Webber as a cellist and Menuhin as a conductor. That, I suppose, is part of the penalty of their name and fame, but it is none the less an unfair and unperceptive judgment which will gain no support from their recording of Elgar’s Cello Concerto. I prefer it to the recent Yo-Yo Ma Previn performance on CBS and I would risk a small wager that Elgar himself might have preferred it, because it takes note of his own description of the Concerto: “A real large work, and I think good and alive.” Its chief merit is that it projects the work’s emotional intensity without needing to resort to unauthorized extremes of tempo. Lloyd Webber may make the occasional ritardando where none is indicated, but he is otherwise conspicuously faithful to the letter of the score. Menuhin’s moderato tempo in the first movement is just right, it seems to me, sufficiently world-weary without sounding overcome by lassitude. The clarity of the recording, made in a comfortably resonant acoustic, ensures that the happy touches of orchestral detail are heard without undue prominence.

    Menuhin’s account of the Variations lacks some of the finesse that distinguished Mackerras’s HMV recording, but it is the interpretation of a musician who has lived long with this music and loves it. He and the engineers have taken immense care with the timbre of the upper strings in the statement of the theme and there are several passages the prominence given to the lower strings in the middle section of “Dorabella”. for example where Menuhin directs the listener’s attention to yet another facet of this inexhaustibly fascinating score. Nothing ‘routine’ here, nor in the RPO’s playing. Michael Kennedy