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Category: Reviews

  • Glass Cello Concerto

    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 novelty soon vanishes: when the orchestra kicks in, it is with a patch of Mr. Glass’s chugging boilerplate, and 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).

  • Glass Cello Concerto

    Mail on Sunday 3rd October 2004

    Philip Glass

    Royal Liverpool Philharmonic

    with Julian Lloyd Webber

    (Orange Mountain)

    Another who straddles the divide between popular and serious music is the American minimalist Philip Glass, whose score or the movie The Hours earned him an Oscar nomination.

    He has formed his own label to record some of his concertos. The first offering, recorded earlier this year in Liverpool, couples the lightweight Concerto For Two Percussionists and Orchestra with the altogether more substantive Cello Concerto, commissioned by Julian Lloyd Webber and beautifully played by him.

    Lasting more than half an hour, this makes great demands on the soloist, not least in the absorbing three-minute partially accompanied cadenza that begins the work. It is blessed with a rich tapestry of engaging musical ideas that belies the reputation of minimalism as just an excuse to endlessly repeat the same melodic cell.

    The first movement has some delightful interplay between soloist and woodwind, while in the slow movement the strings introduce some of the melodic ideas, with the cello ruminating h and around the. theme to often magical effect. This concerto was premiered by Lloyd Webber n Beijing in 2001 and has yet to receive its British premiere. Until then this excellent CD will certainly suffice.

  • Glass Cello Concerto

    September 2004

    Philip Glass

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

    Orange Mountain MUSiC 0014; CD

    The Concerto Project Volume 1

    Cello Concerto. Concerto Fantasy for two Timpanists and Orchestras

    Julian Lloyd Webber (vc), Evelyn Glennie, Jonathan Haas perc,

    Royal Liverpool Philhamonic Orchestra/ Gerard Schwarz.

    Orange Mountain Music OMMOO14 (45 minutes DDD)

    Music both engaging and exciting as Glass puts his top soloists through their paces

    The Cello Concerto was conceived when Julian Lloyd Webber asked Glass to compose a work for the cellist’s 50th birthday. Lloyd Webber says the piece, premiered in October 2001, contains technical hurdles he had not seen before in particularly in the opening cadenza, but for the listener it’s not a difficult work. That cadenza, underpinned by muffled, percussive figures from the orchestra, is dramatic, with an undercurrent of ambiguous emotion. but it is also lithe aid attractive, evocative of the classics of cello literature—not least Bach and Elgar. After about. 3’20” the orchestra introduces brighter textures and typical Glass motifs.

    There are passages where the debate between orchestra and soloist seems to contrast those often—copied, easily parodied Glass mannerisms with his more melodically arid harmonically expansive work of recent years. The result is one of the most engaging, impressive and beautiful things Glass has done. The slow movement, lyrical and graceful, sets us up perfectly for the shock of the opening of the finale, which bursts in with one of those ‘accelerating train’ episodes Glass does so effectively.

    The gestation of the timpani concerto was more problematic. I can sympathise with Glass’s hesitations. Despite its tuneful capabilities, I associate timpani primarily with melodrama and bombast and, while Glass has never been averse to those characteristics, timpani still isn’t an ideal choice for a concerto solo instrument. There are 14 of them here, presumably due to the need to negotiate fairly rapid movement through different keys.

    It all works remarkably well in the event. The fast first movement has exciting, ritualistic solo par, perhaps influenced by South-East Asian and Japanese traditions The slow movement manages to make the drums sound lyrical embedded in settings of regal brass and pastoral woodwind. the cadenza preceding the third movement, highly athletic as it is, proves to be a warm-up for Evelyn Glennie and Jonathan Haas before the technical tour-de-force of the finale.

    Barry Witherden

  • Fricker Cello Sonata: Sunday Times

    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

    June 10th 2007

    Elgar really is worth all this pomp

    The day of Elgar’s birth in 1857 was a perfect summer’s day. And so was the day when the people of Worcester laid on celebrations for his 150th anniversary in honour of their favourite son. There was a mayor’s reception and chamber concert in the morning, a gala birthday concert in the cathedral in the afternoon, and in the evening a grand dinner in perhaps the most beautiful room in any municipal building in the country. The cathedral, the River Severn and the Malvern Hills beyond, all so vital to Elgar’s inspiration, sparkled in the sun. As my mother loved to say: ‘God’s in His Heaven — all’s right with the world!’

    Certainly, that was the only proper response to a wonderfully atmospheric concert in this great cathedral’s unusually sympathetic acoustic. The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic sounded rich and ripe throughout, and four choruses, no less, under the inspired baton of veteran Elgarian Donald Hunt overwhelmed us with the full majesty of Elgar’s orchestral and choral writing.

    Elgar’s mother, Ann, had a busy day on June 2, 1857, and so did Julian Lloyd Webber 150 years later. After offering a noble account of the cello concerto here, he flew to London by helicopter for a repeat performance in a sold-out Albert Hall.

    It was a sure sign that Elgar is back in his rightful place in public esteem, from which he had fallen well before his death, aged 76, in 1934. His 70th birthday concert in London, for instance, in the presence of the composer, was less than half frill. Thankfully, today we recognise him for what he is: not the jingoistic minstrel of empire, as was once thought, but a sensitive genius who bared his soul in some of the most haunting music ever written.

    That is why, in our uncertain age, the autumnal cello concerto speaks to us so movingly, and no living cellist does it better than Lloyd Webber. His long-gestated reading was sensitive to every nuance, and the beauty of tone he drew from his 1690 Strad was often breathtaking.

    Donald Hunt’s empathy with the composer shone through every bar of a wonderfully detailed account of the Enigma Variations, which I had the privilege of hearing while sitting next to a great-niece of Winifred Norbury, whose delicately etched variation precedes Nimrod.

    It was worth the price of the ticket just to hear Elgar’s choral version of the National Anthem, with ‘knavish tricks’ and all the rest of the politically incorrect stuff in verses two and three that is normally suppressed today.

    Glorious, too, to hear the full orchestral version of the anthem ‘Give Unto The Lord’, composed in 1914 for St Paul’s Cathedral, when Elgar was still near the height of his powers.

    My only regret, not entirely swept away by a vigorous performance, was the inclusion of the Coronation Ode, written for Edward VII in 1902. The forelock-tugging lyrics of A.C. Benson, then an Eton housemaster, simply don’t work today. However splendid the music, this is the kind of thing most contemporary Elgarians have spent half their lives denying is the real Elgar. It’s best experienced by consenting adults in private.

    Here, too, came my only quibble about the performers. The four soloists were an ill-assorted bunch, with a soprano whose wobble under pressure recalled Walt Disney’s Clara Cluck, and a tenor who works locally, and who should stick to the entertainment after Rotary dinners.

    Even while Elgar’s star was on the wane, broadly between the Twenties and the Seventies, outstanding recordings of his music were made, many by the London Philharmonic Orchestra. So it’s an excellent idea to gather together some of the best on five CDs.

    Elgar made his last three recordings with the newly formed LPO in 1933, and all are included here. As are fine recordings by distinguished Elgarians such as Sir Adrian Boult and Sir Georg Solti, as well as a novelty; Dame Janet Baker, the guest of honour at Saturday’s jubilations, in a previously unissued 1984 live recording of the Sea Pictures, which she sings with unique authority.

    David Mellor

  • Elgar Cello Concerto

    July 1984

    ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL, APRIL 29

    LLOYD WEBBER (CELLO)/KENT COUNTY YOUTH ORCHESTRA/DE CSILLERY

    BRAHMS, ELGAR, HOLST

    Youth orchestras have a lot to give, and the Kent County Youth Orchestra is no exception. But despite Bela de Csillery’s long and close involvement with the orchestra, I wasn’t entirely convinced that he consistently drew the best from it. Brahms’ ‘Tragic’ Overture contained some very good playing, unanimous strings, solid trombones and heavenly oboe solos, but the conducting was sound rather than inspiring, creating no thrills in the lead back to the recapitulation, and the large string section was often underpowered. Nor did Csillery give the orchestra its head in Hoist’s Planets; tempos were fast, but not fast enough to generate excitement, and the more sustained movements lacked serenity. ‘I Vow to Thee, My Country’ had little old English grandeur.

    Julian Lloyd Webber, doyen of the younger British cellists, was on superb form in Elgar’s Concerto, bringing his accustomed generosity of feeling to a work obviously very close to his heart. What distinguishes him from other cellists is that he so palpably plays with the orchestra, always with an ear to what is going on in the accompaniments. That said, I wonder what the performance would have been like with a more sympathetic conductor at the helm. The orchestral strings simply did not match Lloyd Webber’s phrasing when they took up the first subject (phrasing that young players should listen to and learn from). As in the Hoist the orchestral contribution was too homogenous, with neither fire nor repose, nor enough light and shade. A pity to have to present such young players in so unfavourable a light, as there was no doubt as to their collective talent and ability.

    Andrew Mikolajski

  • Elgar Cello Concerto

    The Press, NZ, 1st June 2006

    Lloyd Webber weaves magic

    NZSO with Julan Lloyd Webber (cello) and Hamish McKeich (contra bassoon). Town Hall Auditorium

    The drawcard for this concert was always Julian Lloyd Webber.

    The items flanking him were of definite interest — a rarely heard romantic anachronism and a new Kiwi piece — but first mention should go to Lloyd Webber. His account of Elgar’s Cello Concerto was a blend of introspection in the opening movement, red- blooded romance in the adagio and bite in the finale.

    His eloquent interpretation ensured he never rode across the top of the orchestra, but rather with it, reserving his tone more as an extra orchestral colour.

    His intense sound ensured we heard virtually everything, yet in many ways he was very laid-back.

    The technical stuff was, of course, apple pie with the harmonics and deft upper-register work ringing like a bell. Even the pizzicato chords had that extra something.

    For the hundreds of times he must have played this work, Lloyd Webber still demonstrated his absolute involvement in the music. His relationship with the orchestra was seamless, with its support never overwhelming. It was easy to see how his recording with Menuhin was voted one of the best discs ever.

    His choice of the Britten as an encore was rather strange, with the disjointed pizzicato falling a little flat after the richness of the Elgar.

    Heavy Traffic, by Michael Norris, is an engaging work, notable for its obvious humour and programmatic references, but most of all for giving the neglected contra bassoon its moment in the sun.

    Hamish McKeich is passionate about his instrument and he plays it fabulously, facing the challenges of this tricky score with relative ease.

    Norris, wisely, did not try to make it a surrogate cello, accepting that it can be a figure of fun and used the full gamut of effects — from B-grade horror movie to flatulent moose. Musical curiosity it may be, but this work may well turn out to be one of the most well- known pieces for the instrument.

    Finally, Zemlinsky’s long- neglected Mermaid took up the second half. Conductor James Judd sculpted a passionate and virtuosic account of this unashamedly sumptuous score. The orchestra had supported magnificently throughout the night and taking centre stage, it dazzled.

    Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd

  • Elgar Cello Concerto

    29th August 1976

    Delights at Hereford

    If neither as rose-red as Petra, nor quite as old as time,the sturdily elegant pile of Hereford Cathedral glowed a pleasant pink every balmy summer evening last week as we, the Three Choirs Festival faithful, poured out on to its parched lawns, Daily we enjoyed the usual mixture of ancient and modern, sacred and secular, in an atmosphere that is unique.

    Some things belong to it, of course, as, for example, Elgar’s Cello Concerto. Beautifully played by Julian Lloyd Webber and the RPO under Donald Hunt, with every Elgarian rallentando and pause in place, it sounded like an emanation of the building itself.

    Felix Aprahamian

  • Elgar Cello Concerto

    Classic Today December 2004

    The coupling is a logical one: the cello concertos of Elgar and Walton, played by British cellist Julian Lloyd Webber, an empathetic artist with a special affinity for English cello literature. Lloyd Webber’s recording of Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E minor was made in July 1985, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Yehudi Menuhin. It is a deeply-felt performance, imbued with a touching degree of modesty, placing it among this artist’s finest documents on CD. Lloyd Webber’s plangent tone and unhurried approach fully engages the nobility and the valedictory content of the work in equal degree. Particularly moving is the Adagio, notable for its restraint and for much exceptionally beautiful quiet playing. Frequently compared with the classic 1965 EMI recording by Jacqueline Du Pré with the London Symphony Orchestra under Barbirolli, Lloyd Webber’s account is no less powerfully eloquent.

    Curiously however, when this performance first appeared, it was paired with Menuhin’s recording of Elgar’s Enigma Variations, generally a splendid account, now supplanted by Lloyd Webber’s 1996 performance (with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields under Neville Marriner) of the Cello Concerto by William Walton. That’s not to say that Lloyd Webber’s Walton is any less convincing nor impressive than his Elgar, but simply that the earlier Philips Digital Classics package had seemed well worth preserving. This reading of the Walton concerto, however, has been beautifully recorded. The meticulously balanced production allows the complex inner fabric of Walton’s score to be laid clearly before the listener, and Lloyd Webber understands its underlying luxuriance, debating its opulence and expressive warmth to good effect. Compared with Lyn Harrell’s EMI version with Simon Rattle and the City of Birmingham Symphony, the Lloyd Webber/Marriner collaboration is more deeply considered and more faithful to the letter of the score, and the slightly smaller orchestral resources employed help the soloist to prove convincingly that in expressive terms, less is often more. Another worthy inclusion in the Phillips 50 series, but the original coupling of Elgar’s concerto and Variations seemed more or less complete in itself, so why change it?

    Michael Jameson

  • Elgar Cello Concerto

    Classical Good CD Guide 2003

    Favourite Cello Concertos

    Albinoni (arr Palmer) Adagio in G minor

    Bach (arr Palmer) Cantata No 147 — Jesu, joy of man’s desiring

    Dvorák Cello Concerto in B minor, B191

    Elgar Cello Concerto in F minor, Op 85. Romance, Op 62. Une idylle in G, Op 4 No 1

    Fauré Elegie, Op 24 Gounod Ave Maria

    Lloyd Webber Jackie’s Song

    Saint-Saens Cello Concerto No 1 in A minor, Op 33. Allegro appassionato in B minor, Op 43. Le carnaval des animaux — Le cygne Schumann (arr Palmer) Kinderszenen—Traumerei, Op 15 No 7

    Tchaikovsky Variations on a Rococo Theme, Op 33

    Julian Lloyd Webber, cello with various orchestras and conductors

    Philips © 462 115-2PM2 (155 minutes: DDD) Recorded 1984-98

    A first-class package in every way. Julian Lloyd Webber has a firm, richly coloured and full- focused tune. His lyrical warmth projects tellingly over the entire range and his involvement in the music communicates consistently and tellingly. He has chosen his accompanists well too. His account of the great Dvorák Concerto is full of passionate feeling, with a tender Adagio, and Neumann and the Czech Philharmonic give him thoroughly persuasive backing, playing with plenty of bite in tuttis, the Slavonic exuberance always to the fore. His performance of the Elgar concerto has the huge advantage of Lord Menuhin as his partner, a true Elgarian if ever there was one. It is a performance of real understanding and rare intensity, which never oversteps the work’s emotional boundaries and is imbued with innate nostalgia: the Adagio has a haunting Elysian stillness. The Saint-Saëns is played for the splendid bravura war-horse that it is, and we are also given a rare chance to hear the original, uncut version of Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations. Lloyd Webber soon proves that it is superior to the truncated version used in most other recordings; moreover his spontaneous warmth in Tchaikovsky’s long-drawn lyrical lines, which he makes sound very Russian in character, makes a perfect foil for the sparkling virtuosity elsewhere. Among the encores the lovely Traumerei stands out for its freely improvisational feeling and Lloyd Webber’s own tribute to Jacqueline du Pré is played as an ardent, tuneful and timely postscript.