Search Tool

1) Search in…

2) Search for…

Specified search details…

No search criteria specified

List content will go here

Search Tool

1) Search in…

2) Search for…

Specified search details…

No search criteria specified

List content will go here

Category: Reviews

  • Britten Cello Symphony Reviews

    Classic CD Choice August 1997

    BRITTEN Cello Symphony, Op. 68 (1963)

    WALTON Cello Concerto (1956).

    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

  • Britten Cello Symphony Reviews

    Daily Mail 8th August 1997

    Walton Cello Concerto

    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

  • Britten Cello Symphony Reviews

    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 *****

  • Britten Cello Symphony Reviews

    The Guardian 11th July 1997

    Britten Cello Symphony

    Walton Cello Concerto

    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

  • Britten Cello Symphony Reviews

    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

  • Britten Cello Symphony Reviews

    The Sunday Telegraph 1987

    Britten Cello Symphony, Walton Cello Concerto

    Classical Records

    Michael Kennedy

    Britten/ Walton Cello Symphony, Cello Concerto.

    Lloyd Webber, AMF/ Marriner (Philips 454442-2).

    Britten’s work dates from 1963, Walton’s from 1956. Each was its composer’s first major orchestral work for many years, each was inspired by a great Russian virtuoso (Rostropovich and Piatigorsky). There the resemblance ends. The Cello Symphony is one of Britten’s darkest and mysteriously ambivalent scores, a long and difficult progression from angst and turbulence to what, remembering Billy Budd, one might call a ‘far-shining sail’ ending. Walton’s is a languorous, amorous piece, drenched in Italian sun but not without a vein of melancholy. And for all its apparent conservatism and ease, it is highly original in design and, likethe Britten, makes fiendish demands on the soloist.

    Julian Lloyd Webber plays both with intuitive sympathy and a heart-warming perception of their contrasted virtues. His interpretation of the first movement of the Britten is less tense and stormy than Rostropovich’s but in some respects penetrates deeper into its morosely elegiac musings. In Walton’s more cantabile themes, he gives lyrical rein to the long phrasing and is notably skilful and eloquent in the cadenza. Sir Neville Marriner and the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields provide excellent support. A fine disc.

  • Britten Cello Symphony Reviews

    The Independent On Sunday  November 1987

    Britten Cello Symphony, Walton Cello Concerto

    CLASSICAL

    Britten: Cello Symphony/ Walton: Cello Concerto.

    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

  • Bridge Oration

    Musical Times August 1979

    “Particularly valuable was Julian Lloyd Webber’s marvellous performance at the opening concert of Bridge’s ‘Oration’, a work that should surely gain a permanent place in the repertory.”

  • Bridge Oration

    Classical Music 2nd June 1979

    Frank Bridge Oration (first public performance) Bridge Cello Concerto (Oration)

    “To secure a performance of Oration was a remarkable coup; this imposing 28-minute cello concerto is practically unknown, a situation which will be rectified later this year when a recording by Julian Lloyd Webber, the soloist on this occasion, is issued. His commitment to it was evidenced by playing of superb technical accomplishment and magnificent passion.”

    Lyndon Jenkins

  • Bridge Oration

    Music Web CD Review

    Benjamin BRITTEN (1913-1976) Cello Symphony op. 68 (1963) [37:37] Frank BRIDGE (1879-1941) Oration – Concerto Elegiaco for cello and orchestra (1930) [30:41] Steven Isserlis (cello) City London Sinfonia/Richard Hickox rec. Studio 1, Abbey Road, London, 12, 14 March 1987. DDD EMI CLASSICS BRITISH COMPOSERS 5059162 [68:18]

    There are plenty of links between Britten and Bridge. Britten was one of Bridge’s pupils. They both held pacifist sympathies. Britten was ‘blown away’ by Bridge’s suite The Sea and by the towering masterpiece that is Enter Spring – both heard by the young composer at the Norwich Festivals of the 1920s. The influence of Bridge and especially of The Sea can be heard in Britten’s Peter Grimes. Britten wrote his Frank Bridge Variations. Britten was instrumental in the Bridge revival of the 1960s into the 1970s when Bridge’s music had sunk past the plunge of plummet. Aldeburgh was the scene of some fine Bridge revivals conducted by Britten – The Sea and Enter Spring. Britten’s circle including Steuart Bedford carried the Bridge baton forward into a world more accommodating of Bridge’s styles and idioms. That their two works for cello and orchestra are coupled on one CD now enjoying its third issue is fitting although to date this is the first and only such coupling. These recordings were first issued by EMI Classics as CDC 7 49716 2 in the late 1980s. They were then reissued as CDM7639092 in 1992 (also in the British Composers series) and they now reappear again.

    The Cello Symphony was written for Rostropovich who made the iconic Decca recording of it with the composer and the ECO in the 1960s. It came two years after the War Requiem and Cello Sonata and one year before the Cello Suite No. 1. All these works were bound up with Rostropovich in one way or another. Isserlis and Hickox in their emotive performance are treated to a wide spread and warmly embracing recording. There are many highlights including the desolating serenade at end of first track; not to mention the Coplandesque stride of the trumpet entwining the cello in tr. 5. From time to time one also hears music harking back to Grimes and to the Purcell Variations. As for the Bridge, which I must say puts the Britten in the shade in terms of sheer humane fibre and memorable quality, it is given a performance of powerful conviction if lacking the sheer concentration of the Lloyd Webber on Lyrita.

    Previously these two major pieces have been grouped with other things – either shorter pieces by Bridge or similar concerto-scale pieces by other composers including Walton. Wallfisch’s Bridge is on a fine Nimbus CD is with Holst’s Invocation and with the Elgar concerto – a good juxtaposition since both are suffused with the impact of the Great War. The unjustly forgotten but superb Pearl recording by Alexander Baillie and the Cologne radio orchestra conducted by John Carewe had Enter Spring as an apt companion. It has been deleted – more’s the pity. The Chandos Bridge series’ Oration is played by Alban Gerhardt and is coupled with other Bridge. Then again there’s the perfectly balanced, and I think, definitive reading by Julian Lloyd Webber recently reissued on Lyrita. The Lyrita is adroitly matched with Peter Wallfisch’s Phantasm which stylistically speaking is in very much the same territory as Oration.

    Rob Barnett