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Category: Reviews

  • Bridge Scherzetto: classicsource.com

    www.classicsource.com April 2012

    National Children’s Orchestra of Great Britain at Cadogan Hall with Julian Lloyd Webber

    There are several advantages for the audience attending a youth orchestra concert: in the first place, the musicians are all pleased to be there, and are keen to do their best; secondly, rather more rehearsal time than is usually allotted to an orchestral concert will have been expended on preparing the programme, and last, the personnel is more often than not greater than those of professional orchestras, affording an added bonus of being able to perform large-scale works with a more suitable number of players asked for by the composers than is usually encountered.

    All of these factors, and more, were in evidence in this concert by the main National Children’s Orchestra (its members aged 13 to 14 – there is a second orchestra, made up of under 13s), which comprised almost 120 musicians on the specially extended stage (only three percussionists, including timpani, were named in the programme, when at least five were in evidence). Of course, some might complain that in theory an orchestra made up youthful players cannot match in experience or musical understanding that of older professionals, but in practice one had to keep reminding oneself that these musicians were still at secondary schools, from across the country – absolutely no allowances had to be made for their age.

    It was a terrific programme: the first work, Matthew Curtis’s Sinfonietta, was new to your correspondent (as was the composer, about whom the lavishly illustrated programme book told us nothing, other than he was born in 1959), the work coming across as a cleverly written, brilliantly orchestrated and somewhat substantial piece in three movements of more than 20 minutes’ duration, although a little deficient in terms of distinctive character. It was exceptionally well played, the orchestra relishing the challenges this gifted composer placed before them.

    Julian Lloyd Webber joined the NCO for two short pieces: in Fauré’s haunting “Élégie” his rich tone told well against the very fine orchestral balance under Gavin Sutherland’s conducting, and the rare Frank Bridge Scherzetto proved a delightful foil. These two works were quite beautifully played and projected with genuine character.

    Thus far, so good: but these welcome events did not entirely prepare us for an astonishingly assured and profoundly impressive account of Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique. With four harps and the rest of the orchestra almost in proportion (just six double basses out of a total string strength of 69 – in this splendid acoustic this was not a problem) the result was a performance that gripped from first bar to last, Gavin Sutherland directing with the commanding character and sensitive musicianship of a master, his wide experience here put to genuine effect. Thankfully, a recording of the concert was made, so the truth of my comments can be readily demonstrated; in terms of sheer committed musicianship, virtuosity and total involvement from every player, this was a performance such as one rarely hears, even from major orchestras – let us hope these musicians, should they go on to have adult playing careers, never lose their enthusiasm for making music. On this showing, it was downright tangible and incredibly uplifting in our current socio-economic climate.

    Robert Matthew-Walker

  • Brahms Trio in A Minor

    March 20th 2011

    Philip Dukes – 20 years anniversary concert at the Purcell Room

    It is twenty years since Philip Dukes made his Purcell Room debut. He chose to mark the occasion with this afternoon recital, enticing in choice of repertoire and excellent in quality of performance, Dukes enjoying the dedicated collaboration of Piers Lane and Julian Lloyd Webber.

    Dukes and Lane were then joined by Julian Lloyd Webber for a rather lovely account of Brahms’s Clarinet Trio, played in its alternative version with viola. This was a caring, sharing performance alive to melancholy and beauty of phrase, brimful of beauty and confidential asides. One may have missed the breath and liquorice of a clarinet, but Lloyd Webber’s contribution was notable for tenderness and poise, and also how the three musicians (one very distinctively playing a viola, one a cello) interacted to bring us the import of this music without harming its essential privacy.

    Colin Anderson

  • Brahms Sonatas for cello and piano

    December 2001

    Brahms Cello Sonata in E minor, op 38

    Autumn Drizzle

    At the Cuarteto Casals’s coffee concert in the Wigmore Hall on 9 September, I was disturbed to see second violinist Abel Tomas come on stage first, I was ever more worried v/hen saw that he was going to lead in the first tern. When he actually started playing I was appalled, I heard what amounted to an insult to the music, Mozart’s “Dissonance” Quartet, Tom’s, an excellent second violinist, has neither the tone, nor the flexibility, nor the personality to lead what, up to now, has been one of the most promising quartet ensembles in the world. This silly idea, which came to the Casals players during the summer, is all the more inexplicable when n Vera Martinez Mehner they have such a superb leader, Sure enough, when she led in Brahms’s C minor Quartet order was restored and a lovely performance ensued.

    To suggest that anyone can lead a quartet is as crass as to say that anyone can play second violin. Why stop there? Why not have the violinist and the cellist swapping places too? Let such “democracy” be kept for domestic run-throughs or the rehearsal studio.

    My two cellists this month were at very different stages of their careers, The BBC lunchtime concert at the Wigmore on the 17th, featuring the established pairing of Julian Lloyd Webber and John Lenehan, took place when we were all still reeling from the events in America.

    The artists dedicated their Faure Elegie to victims of violence everywhere and the performance was worthy of the thought, Lenehan launching it with a sombre tread and showing throughout that the piano part was equal to that of the cello, not simply an accompaniment. Lloyd Webber was at his most committed.

    The mood spilled over into Brahms’s E minor Sonata, which (pace Gerald Larner’s combative programme note) came over as very bleak and solemn, but memorable, for all that.

    Then we had the first London performance of the Cello Sonata no.2 in which James MacMillan continued his assault on the pianos of the world; fortunately, the instrument was played with more finesse than it was in a performance of the First Sonata I heard recently. Despite an accident with the cellist’s music (he otherwise played from memory), the piece made a cohesive impression at a first hearing – written in a seven-section arch form, it is cleverly constructed. The composer was present to hear it very well played.

    Richard Harwood, in a Kirckman Concert at the Purcell Room on the 24th, made a positive impression, although he needs to adopt a less apologetic platform manner (especially when coming on stage) and to learn his bread-and-buffer sonatas by heart. When he played Popper’s Hungarian Fantasy from memory as an encore, he was a different cellist.

    That said, I enjoyed the renderings of Martinu’s Slovak Variations, Lutoslawski’s Grave and Beethoven’s A major Sonata – with some interesting effects in the latter’s Scherzo – that he and his superb pianist Dominic Harlan delivered. Brahms’s F minor Sonata was given rather a drawn-out, old men’s performance, without the mitigating circumstances of the somewhat sombre Lenehan–Lloyd Webber recital.

    One could be forgiven for thinking that the title of Collegium Musicum 90, who gave a Wigmore Hall coffee concert on the 23rd, referred to the players’ age rather than their foundation year. They plodded through trio sonatas by Boyce and Arne without even the frisson of incompetence one used to get from period instruments. I enjoyed the plentiful tuning as much as the performances.

    Simon Standage perked up in Handel’s D major Violin Sonata, producing good tone and articulation, but still had his nose buried in the copy. Then suddenly all four players threw off their rigor mortis for the same composer’s G minor Trio Sonata. Micaela Comberti, who had sounded like Standage’s shadow all morning, began to play out and harpsichordist Nicholas Pane raised his fingers more than a millimetre above the keyboard.

    It took the Ondine Piano Trio from Denmark to make me wish to be back with Collegium Musicum 90 This hyperactive threesome came to the Purcell Room on 2 October trailing clouds of glory, having won every prize ‘n sight, most recently the Parkhouse Award.

    Their Haydn C major no.27 was full of exaggerated dynamics and their playing quickly became predictable. Violinist Silk Heide did not match cellist Jonathan Slaatto’s phrasing and emoted so much all evening, it was no surprise that when he had to execute a slow pianissimo bow stroke, he tended to muff it.

    As I heard the players overdoing every contrast in Beethoven’s “Ghost” – and failing to catch the mood of the eerie Largo assai – I cast my mind back to the equally young Simer Trio who had played the same two works so much more naturally at the Wigmore recently.

    And when the Ondine turned to the Brahms B major I really did wish the trio was underwater, as ifs name implied. Not only did the constant exaggerations become wearisome, but some of the playing in the second and fourth movements was plain ugly.

    I was sorry to miss the Leonfoch Quartet (unable to get a flight out of the US) at the Wigmore on 16 September and hearing their Ukrainian compatriot Viktoriya Gregoreva there on the 26th was no compensation. After listening to her thick, ‘ill-tuned, unstylish playing of violin sonatas by Bach and Hindemith, I suddenly remembered a number of things I needed to do at home. Pianist Jill Crossland sounded rather good.

    Thank goodness for Lenehan and Lloyd Webber. I say. Tully Potter

  • Bridge Elegy

    2000/1

    British Cello Music Vol.2

    “British cello music”, Vol. 2 (with John McCabe, piano): STANFORD: Sonata No. 2, op. 39. BRIDGE: Elegy; Scherzetto. IRELAND: Sonata in G min.

    The Stanford Second Cello sonata (1893, written between his Fourth and Fifth Symphonies) is revealed here as an inspired work whose opening theme flowers into great lyrical warmth on Lloyd Webber’s ardent bow. The focus of the recording is a little diffuse, but that serves to add to the atmosphere. Ireland’s Sonata, too, is among his most richly inspired works, a broad-spanning piece in which ambitious, darkly intense outer movements frame a most beautiful Poco largamente. Again Lloyd Webber, who has long been a passionate advocate of the work, conveys its full expressive power. The Bridge Elegy (written as early as 1911) is another darkly poignant evocation which points forward to the sparer, more austere style of the later Bridge, and the Scherzetto (even earlier, 1902) makes a winning encore: it should ideally have been placed at the end of the recital. John McCabe is a sympathetic partner in spite of the balance, but this collection offers what are among Lloyd Webber’s finest performances on disc.

  • Bridge Scherzetto: Penguin Guide 2000/1

    2000/1

    British Cello Music Vol.2

    “British cello music”, Vol. 2 (with John McCabe, piano): STANFORD: Sonata No. 2, op. 39. BRIDGE: Elegy; Scherzetto. IRELAND: Sonata in G min.

    The Stanford Second Cello sonata (written between his Fourth and Fifth Symphonies) is revealed here as an inspired work whose opening theme flowers into great lyrical warmth on Lloyd Webber’s ardent bow. The focus of the recording is a little diffuse, but that serves to add to the atmosphere. Ireland’s Sonata, too, is among his most richly inspired works, a broad-spanning piece in which ambitious, darkly intense outer movements frame a most beautiful Poco largamente. Again Lloyd Webber, who has long been a passionate advocate of the work, conveys its full expressive power. The Bridge Elegy (written as early as 1911) is another darkly poignant evocation which points forward to the sparer, more austere style of the later Bridge, and the Scherzetto (even earlier, 1902) makes a winning encore: it should ideally have been placed at the end of the recital. John McCabe is a sympathetic partner in spite of the balance, but this collection offers what are among Lloyd Webber’s finest performances on disc.

  • Britten Third Suite for Cello

    June 1997

    BRITISH CELLO MUSIC, Volume I & II

    Julian Lloyd Webber’s performances of British music always carry the imprimatur of authority. and transmit a palpable sense of conviction that never fails to win new devotees to this area of the cello literature. I am especially happy, then, to welcome these splendid offerings back to the catalogs. Lloyd Webber is an artist of missionary enterprise, and his playing is underpinned by a technical assurance that vouchsafes his preeminence as the foremost living exponent of England’s cellistic oeuvre. As a result of his advocacy, works like those collected on these two ASV issues arc increasingly seen as being emblematic of a unique nationalistic subgenre. That these two CDs embrace between them no fewer than six world-premiere recordings bespeaks as much. But that the music is played with such understanding, affection, and profundity of utterance outstrips regular expectations.

    Britten’s Third Suite dates from the spring of 1971, and was premiered by Rostropovich (for whom the previous two Suites and the Cello Symphony were also written) in December 1974. The present performance, which dates from August 1979, is of special import, since it was in fact the first commercial recording of the piece, and it still holds its own in an increasingly competitive field. Julian Lloyd Webber’s account has both the pliant elasticity and the requisite expressive insights to make the most of its frisson and fantasy, but there is a deeper, darker, more elegiac core to this music. Britten’s implementation of the Kontakion, the Russian Orthodox hymn for the departed, is well documented, as is his decision to include an alternative version from English liturgy, and Julian Lloyd Webber plays the English Hymnal interpolation here. The Thema “Sacher,” an intriguing, unaccompanied cryptogram on the letters S-A-C-H-E-R, honored the conductor on the occasion of his seventieth birthday in 1976. A slight sixty-two seconds in duration, the current performance evidences Britten’s ingenuity in the genre, and the playing is magical. Alan Rawsthome’s cello sonata of 1949 (pithy, driven, sometimes truculent, but never crass), makes clever use of recurrent, cyclic themes as earlier motifs are revisited in the Finale: at the time of writing, no other recording exists, so a reading of this quality is the more welcome for its reappearance. The pianist here. and in the remaining accompanied works discussed here (in fact, there is only one other in the case of the first of these two discs, and that is a beguilingly enraptured account of John Ireland’s The Holy Boy) is the pianist and composer John McCabe, with whom Julian Lloyd Webber has enjoyed an especially fruitful collaboration.

    The remaining solo works here are by Sir Malcolm Arnold and Sir William Walton. The former’s 1987 Fantasy for solo cello is, in my view, a splendid addition to the repertoire. Cast in seven highly contrasted movements, its sophistication lurks behind an inscrutability that Hugo Cole describes as “Chinese economy of means.” It is an apt description, and Lloyd Webber’s account (still the only one in the catalog) focuses skillfully on the composer’s desire to draw out the naturalistic, rather than virtuosic, side of the instrument’s persona. The Walton Passacaglia is built along traditional lines (eight-measure theme and ten variations); it condenses Altonian severity and acerbity down to a solitary instrumental voice, and does so masterfully. This performance is mesmeric.

    The second release is devoted to fine readings from both artists of sonatas by Sir Charles Villiers Standford and John Ireland, and two characteristic miniatures by Frank Bridge. The Sonata in G Minor by John Ireland (1923) has been examined in these pages in context of the Marco Polo disc from Raphael Wallfisch and John York (Marco Polo 8.223718). Much as 1 found a lot to admire here (the program is a valuable one, also including the Edmund Rubbra sonata in G Minor, op. 60, and the superb A-Minor Sonata by E. J. Moeran). there remains, on comparison with this ASV version, a degree of blandness and discernible reluctance at times to probe much beyond the outer veneer of the notes. Hence, Julian Lloyd Webber’s playing has instantly more appeal and communicative depth, and John McCabe’s management of the taxing piano part is a model of restraint? perhaps it takes a composer well versed in the ways of both instruments to make this music really work texturally? Of the Bridge pairing, Lloyd Webber relates in his insert note his happenstance discovery of the Scherzetto in a collection of manuscripts at the Royal College of Music, London. He gave the modern premiere of the piece, seventy-seven years after its composition, in April 1976; this slight but delicious encore piece is an ideal foil to the somber mood of the preceding Elegy, dating from 1905. Both performances arc admirable. The other large-scale work is the majestic and uncommonly Brahmsian Second Sonata (op. 93?1893) by Stanford. This work, as deserving of a niche in the repertoire as the similarly neglected Elegiac Variations by Sir Donald Francis Tovey (played quite decently by Rebecca Rust and David Aptcr on Marco Polo 8.223637), receives a robust and impassioned performance here. and. like several of the works contained on these ASV issues, is otherwise unavailable. To sum up. Julian Lloyd Webber’s striking and compelling performances arc of consistent excellence, and recorded sound is likewise entirely serviceable. My only gripe is that the labels with which he is associated, ASV and Philips, have yet to recognize both the musical significance and commercial viability of this area of the cello literature. If they were to relent, however, they would find no better artist for the task than Julian Lloyd Webber, whose performances may be unreservedly commended.

    Michael Jameson

  • Britten Cello Sonata: Independent

    19th December 1994

    Britten Sonata in C,op 65

    There were no frills on offer for Julian Lloyd Webber on Thursday at the Wigmore Hall. No record signings or glossy promo packs. Just an evening of simple, honest music-making, like he always said it should be.

    Said it on this page, in fact, over a week ago, in an interview that raised expectations about his style of playing that could only be justified in the act. His programme, with French and Russian classics, new works and old novelties, suggested no lack of ideas. Even so, it was the artist in action who proved his point that playing the cello remains his principal devotion.

    He began with Britten’s Sonata in C; a smart choice, for in its spiderery plucked strings and side-glancing melodies he could project the spirit of his musicianship with little chance of going over the top. Elusiveness seems written into the very notes of this piece, and Lloyd Webber came nearest to direct statement in the Elegia, keening cello against acrid, bitonal chords from the pianist John Lenehan. Yet neither here nor in Debussy’s late Sonata were the players working at full pressure, despite a noble view of the Prologue and an encounter with the Serenade that caught the deft instability of its nervous pantomime.

    Instead, these works gave a preview of the full picture to come: a tonal range that stretched from the lustrous alto timbre of an antique viola to a crisp, succulent bass, and a rhythmic acumen willingly shared between the two players.

    The reward came after the interval, in a faultless reading of Rachmaninov’s testing Cello Sonata. After the bold adventure of its opening bars, the second theme, proposed by Lenehan and propelled by Lloyd Webber through a flight of echoes and asides, stood for the fine coordination of the whole. Gruff tremolos in the scherzo and a fine tune in the slow movement yielded to a finale that relaxed just enough to give the lyrical moments room to breath: it drew lively applause.

    For a striking contrast, there was also the premiere of Dream Sequence, Richard Rodney Bennett’s medley of Broadway themes about childhood. And who else but the incomparable Bennett could turn a simple exercise into such art?

    His chords had an easy showtime magic; at a push you could work them out at the piano; but never quite the chords he chose, and in such exquisite order. Lloyd Webber’s rapt pianissimo was an asset both here and in the plainsong world of another pre´miere, James MacMillan’s Kiss on Wood; bright piano chords like flashes of lightning; then silence; then a winding chant for cello, stretched out on the rack of more silence to end on a prie-dieu of comforting harmonies. MacMillan’s vision of the cross was serene yet questioning and, like the Bennett, a significant plus for the cello repertoire.

    A bouquet of salon music rounded off the evening: Cyril Scott’s Pastoral and Reel and Lullaby and Frank Bridge’s scherzo. These are composers who are polished and passionate. yet often undervalued. A bit like Lloyd Webber? No longer, on the evidence of this wholesome plum-pudding of a concert.

    Nicholas Williams

  • Britten Cello Sonata

    July 1993

    “The high intensity of Julian Lloyd Webber’s playing bewitched the Schleswig-Holstein public…Britten’s C major Sonata was performed in a way which highlighted a wealth of detail.”

  • Britten Cello Sonata

    18th February 1993

    Kraft aus der Synthese von Intellekt und Musikantentum

    Salzburg: Der Cellist Julian Lloyd Webber Im Mozarteum

    Gabriel Faures Elegie in c-Moll, op 24, – Ist das wirklich eine von jenen samtenen Musiksch´pfungen, die zu nichts anderem gut sind, als da´ sich ein Cellist mit Ihrer Hilfe zielstrebig Ins Herz seiner Zuh´rer hinelnschmelchelt? Julian Lloyd Webber Ist ein erzmusikantischer Cellist, und ?jarum hat er diesem St´ck nichts von seinem sentimentalen melodischen Reiz Benommen. Aber er Ist auch und vor allem ein hochintelligenter Cellist; einrr, der sich keineswegs mit einem sonoren Singsang die Bindeb´gen entlang zufrieden gibt. Er h´lt Faures Elegie eher im Mezzoforte und zeltweise in ganz Innigen Piano-T´- nen, l´´t den Schmelz also nur in kleiner Dosis zu. Und gerade deshalb bildet er mit seinem Cello kein akustisches Bollwerk zum Klavier hin, sondern lenkt das Interesse der Zuh´rer hin zum Kollegen an den Tasten. Der Pianist bekommt so die M´glichkeit, ein wichtiges St´ck Faure-Veret´ndnIs mitzuteilen: Faures harmonische Welten ´ind ´ehr genau geplante, vorimpressionistische Klangmalereien. Folgerichtig hat John Lenehan am Fl´gel der feinen Stimmung In den Akkorden nachh´ren k´nnen.

    Es war eine durch und durch anregen- de Begegnung mit Violoncello-Literatur ´us einem eher engen Zeitraum, zwischen 1880 und 1961.Sergej Rachmanlnow befrleolgte mit der g Moll Sonate, op. 19, durchaus Erwartungen’an Virtuosit´t und Schwärmerei. Benjamln Britten wollte mit seiner ?Sonata in C” (op. 65) wohl zeigen, da´ das Schwelgen In den Melodien auch nach zwei Dezennien der Vorherrschaft serieller Kompositionswelsen seine Berechtigung hat, wenn es nur formal, strukturell gut abgesichert Ist.

    Brittens Werk ist In dieser Hinsicht f´rwahr gut ´bgesichert. Und Uoyd Webber hat mit der ihm eigenen Kraft zur Synthese von Intellekt und Musikantentum ein bravour´s aufgeschl´sseltes Bild von dieser Musik nachgezeichnet. Diese Etnton-Motive am Beginn, die so subtil In ihren Bewegungs- und Lautst´rke-Werten verkn´pft warenl Wieder hatte John Lenehan gro´en Anteil am stimmigen Ganzen, denn Brittens ´So- nata” Ist nicht nur tm explizit so benannten ,Dialoge” ein eminent zwie-ge- sprachiges Werk. Der Londoner Pianist hat die Gabe, auch dichte Akkordpassagen mit beneidenswerter Klarheit und Schlankheit umzusetzen. Und er trifft mit schlafwandlerischer Sicherheit jeweils genau die dynimlsche Balance.

    Der Abend war b-imerkenswert auch und gerade wegen der ´bereinstim- mung zwischen dem Cellisten und sei- nem Begleiter.

    Reinhard KriechtMum

  • Salzburg Volkszeitung

    Im Schlagschatten familiärer Prominenz

    “Applause that was merited at the highest level, because right from the beginning there were no doubts that here was a cellist of an extraordinary class.

    The splendour of the evening’s recital lay in the fabulously beautifui sound of this instrument which Julian Lloyd Webber knew how to use throughout its range – perfect changes of register, convincing bowing-technique and, above all, precise intonation characterised the playing of the secure expert, an attitude intensified by his combination of brilliance and depth of feeling.”