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Category: Reviews

  • Salzburger Nachrichten

    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 Musikschöpfungen, die zu nichts anderem gut sind, als daß sich ein Cellist mit Ihrer Hilfe zielstrebig Ins Herz seiner Zuhörer hineinschmelchelt? Julian Lloyd Webber Ist ein erzmusikantischer Cellist, und warum hat er diesem Stück nichts von seinem sentimentalen melodischen Reiz Benommen. Aber er Ist auch und vor allem ein hochintelligenter Cellist; einer, der sich keineswegs mit einem sonoren Singsang die Bindebägen entlang zufrieden gibt. Er hält Faures Elegie eher im Mezzoforte und zeitweise in ganz Innigen Piano-Tönen, läßt 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 Zuhörer hin zum Kollegen an den Tasten. Der Pianist bekommt so die Möglichkeit, ein wichtiges Stück Faure-Verständnls mitzuteilen: Faures harmonische Welten sind sehr genau geplante, vorimpressionistische Klangmalereien. Folgerichtig hat John Lenehan am Flügel der feinen Stimmung In den Akkorden nachhoeren können.

    Es war eine durch und durch anregende Begegnung mit Violoncello-Literatur aus einem eher engen Zeitraum, zwischen 1880 und 1961.Sergej Rachmaninov befriedigte mit der g Moll Sonate, op. 19, durchaus Erwartungen’an Virtuosität und Schwärmerei. Benjamin Britten wollte mit seiner “Sonata in C” (op. 65) wohl zeigen, daß 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 fürwahr gut abgesichert. Und Lloyd Webber hat mit der ihm eigenen Kraft zur Synthese von Intellekt und Musikantentum ein bravourös aufgeschlüsseltes Bild von dieser Musik nachgezeichnet. Diese Emton-Motive am Beginn, die so subtil In ihren Bewegungs- und Lautstärke-Werten verknüpft waren! Wieder hatte John Lenehan großen Anteil am stimmigen Ganzen, denn Brittens “Sonata” Ist nicht nur tm explizit so benannten ,Dialoge” ein eminent zweigesprachiges 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 bemerkenswert auch und gerade wegen der Übereinstimmung zwischen dem Cellisten und seinem Begleiter.

    Reinhard Kriegelbaum

  • Bridge Scherzetto

    February 1993

    Beatrice Harrison Memorial Concert – Wigmore Hall

    Julian Lloyd Webber (cello)

    Another English memorial took place on 9 December in a packed Wigmore Hall – Julian Lloyd Webber’s tribute to Beatrice Harrison.

    Elgar’s biographer, Jerrold Northrop Moore, one of the few people still alive today who heard Beatrice play, gave an interesting address, describing Lloyd Webber as an inheritor of her style: ‘One wasn’t aware of fingers and wood – only of the music itself.’ Having heard Harrison on disc, it may be hard to view the self-effacing Webber as a descendant, but, leaving aside the glissandi and rubato of her time, he is certainly capable of revealing the music itself in an unusual way: in his performance of the Adagio from Elgar’s Concerto he exposed the structure in all its remarkable transparency and simplicity. Particularly striking was the Delius Sonata, a rhapsodic work which Webber managed to anchor, playing with unfailing beauty but not a trace of indulgence. His note on the Ireland Sonata, linking it with the novels of Arthur Machen, who wrote of ‘that strange borderland, lying somewhere between dreams and death’, threw a powerful if ominous new light over the work, and he found his most eloquent moments in the sustained, mauve-coloured phrases on D and G strings. Enormously enjoyable was Cyril Scott’s virtuosic Pastoral and Reel, for which Margaret Harrison was welcomed affectionately on stage to help John Lenehan with the accompaniment. Bridge’s Scherzetto is an encore Harrison herself would have played, and Webber attacked it with alacrity, showing that his English heritage isn’t just serious, beautiful and unsentimental.

    – HELEN WALLACE

  • Beatrice Harrison Memorial Concert

    Beatrice Harrison Memorial Concert – Wigmore Hall

    Julian Lloyd Webber (cello)

    Another English memorial took place on 9 December in a packed Wigmore Hall – Julian Lloyd Webber’s tribute to Beatrice Harrison.

    Elgar’s biographer, Jerrold Northrop Moore, one of the few people still alive today who heard Beatrice play, gave an interesting address, describing Lloyd Webber as an inheritor of her style: “One wasn’t aware of fingers and wood – only of the music itself.” Having heard Harrison on disc, it may be hard to view the self-effacing Webber as a descendant, but, leaving aside the glissandi and rubato of her time, he is certainly capable of revealing the music itself in an unusual way: in his performance of the Adagio from Elgar’s Concerto he exposed the structure in all its remarkable transparency and simplicity. Particularly striking was the Delius Sonata, a rhapsodic work which Webber managed to anchor, playing with unfailing beauty but not a trace of indulgence. His note on the Ireland Sonata, linking it with the novels of Arthur Machen, who wrote of “that strange borderland, lying somewhere between dreams and death”, threw a powerful if ominous new light over the work, and he found his most eloquent moments in the sustained, mauve-coloured phrases on D and G strings. Enormously enjoyable was Cyril Scott’s virtuosic Pastoral and Reel, for which Margaret Harrison was welcomed affectionately on stage to help John Lenehan with the accompaniment. Bridge’s Scherzetto is an encore Harrison herself would have played, and Webber attacked it with alacrity, showing that his English heritage isn’t just serious, beautiful and unsentimental.

    HELEN WALLACE

  • Bridge Elegy

    January 1993

    British Cello Music Vol.2 CD

    STANFORD/BRIDGE/IRELAND

    Stanford:Cello Sonata No.2 Ireland: Cello Sonata in G minor Bridge: Elegy; Scherzetto Julian Lloyd Webber (cello), John McCabe (piano)

    Put simply, this is just marvellous cello playing. Julian Lloyd Webber joins forces again with the pianist John McCabe to produce a second volume of British music for cello and piano. This disc includes three world premiere recordings, two works by Frank Bridge and the wholly remarkable Second Cello Sonata in D minor by Stanford. Written in 1893, Stanford’s three-movement sonata could almost stand as the third cello sonata that Brahms never wrote. The expansiveness of the music draws passionate but beautiful playing from Lloyd Webber, lyrical at the top of the register but also particulalry resonant at the bottom. Bridge’s Elegy is wistful rather than tragic like Faure’s sombre Elegie.

    The surprise on this disc is Bridge’s Scherzetto, written in 1902. Lloyd Webber discovered it in the library of the Royal College of Music while still a student there, giving its first performance in only 1979. It is a brilliant, virtuoso work full of skittish zest which Lloyd Webber controls impressively; a perfect piece for an encore.

    Ireland’s Sonata written in 1923 is more conventional, but receives a highly committed performance from Lloyd Webber and the admirably neat-fingured John McCabe.

    – Annette Morreau

  • Bridge Scherzetto

    January 1993

    British Cello Music Vol.2 CD

    STANFORD/BRIDGE/IRELAND

    Stanford:Cello Sonata No.2 Ireland: Cello Sonata in G minor Bridge: Elegy; Scherzetto Julian Lloyd Webber (cello), John McCabe (piano)

    Put simply, this is just marvellous cello playing. Julian Lloyd Webber joins forces again with the pianist John McCabe to produce a second volume of British music for cello and piano. This disc includes three world premiere recordings, two works by Frank Bridge and the wholly remarkable Second Cello Sonata in D minor by Stanford. Written in 1893, Stanford’s three-movement sonata could almost stand as the third cello sonata that Brahms never wrote. The expansiveness of the music draws passionate but beautiful playing from Lloyd Webber, lyrical at the top of the register but also particulalry resonant at the bottom. Bridge’s Elegy is wistful rather than tragic like Faure’s sombre Elegie.

    The surprise on this disc is Bridge’s Scherzetto, written in 1902. Lloyd Webber discovered it in the library of the Royal College of Music while still a student there, giving its first performance in only 1979. It is a brilliant, virtuoso work full of skittish zest which Lloyd Webber controls impressively; a perfect piece for an encore.

    Ireland’s Sonata written in 1923 is more conventional, but receives a highly committed performance from Lloyd Webber and the admirably neat-fingured John McCabe.

    – Annette Morreau

  • Britten Cello Sonata

    July 1992

    Britten Sonata, Julian Lloyd Webber, Manchester International Cello Festival

    “Julian Lloyd Webber’s performance of the stimulating Britten Sonata was refreshingly pure and unfussy without losing any of its comic grace.”

  • Britten Sonata

    Britten Sonata

    Julian Lloyd Webber

    Manchester International Cello Festival

    “Julian Lloyd Webber’s performance of the stimulating Britten Sonata was refreshingly pure and unfussy without losing any of its comic grace.”

  • Handesblad

    Cellist Julian Lloyd Webber in emotive ensemble with pianist Lenehan

    At his concert in the Kleine Zaal of the Concertgebouw, the English cellist Julian Lloyd Webber proved to be an instrumentalist and musician of a special class. A flexible, rich and – at all dynamic levels – cantabile tone forms the basis of his playing. The uniqueness of Julian Lloyd Webber lies in the fact that he does not use his instrumental skills simply to show off and score a cheap success; on the contrary, his skilful control of the instrument a priori serves the musical text to enable its performance with the correct stylistic interpretation.

    The cellist started and finished his recital with sonatas which are not so often heard. From the beginning of the recital it was obvious that Lloyd Webber has found the right accompanist in John Lenehan. With a high-spirited, exciting, intrinsically moving ensemble, which was suffused with an extremely Russian light melancholic flavour, the performance of the Rachmaninov Sonata was the climax of the evening. With his encores. Bach’s Arioso in G and music by his brother Andrew, the famous composer of musicals, the cellist showed in a brilliant way both the introvert and extrovert aspects of his artistic skill.

  • Britten Cello Sonata: Washington Post

    12th October 1989

    Lloyd Webber’s Cello Treats

    by Joseph McLellan

    Cellist Julian Lloyd Webber introduced his second encore Tuesday night in the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater as the work of “a struggling young composer who has a hard time getting his music played and making ends meet.” It was, of course, composed by his brother Andrew – part of the brilliant “Variations,” which Andrew Lloyd Webber composed to pay off a lost football bet sometime between “Jesus Christ Superstar” and “Evita” – long before “Cats” or “Phantom of the Opera.”

    The music, a variation on Paganini’s 24th Caprice, was fast and furious, full of technical fireworks and ending with a sustained tow note that slid downward as Ltoyd Webber re-tuned his C string. His first encore, almost equally spectacular, was a piece by Benjamin Britten’s teacher Frank Bridge that Webber recently discovered in manuscript Between them, they nearly eclipsed a program that was devoted almost entirely to music of the 20th century.

    Two works – the second version of Faure’s “Begy” and Rachmaninov’s Op. 19 Sonata – barely made it into the century, dating from 1901. Lloyd Webber and his pianist, John Lenehan, responded to the music’s high romantic flavor with soaring lyric phrases in the soulful passages and all-out virtuoso playing in Rachmaninov’s fiery fast movements. A transcription of the “Arioso” from Bach’s Cantata 156 seemed well chosen to open the program: It displayed Lloyd Webber’s deep, rich tone effectively, but it did not quite warm up the players for the harder music that followed.

    Debussy’s Cello Sonata began with rather square phrasing that too often made direct, literal statements where suggestions might have been more effective. But the stiffhess faded, and the piece ended in good style. Before playing Britten’s Sonata in C, composed for Mstislav Rostropovich, Lloyd Webber shared a memory with the audience: “When I was about 13, I heard Rostropovich playing in London, and I think it was that more than any other thing that made me want to be a cellist. I would like to dedicate this performance to that great man of the cello.”

    This music is enormously demanding, not only in its sometimes manic tempos and advanced techniques but also in its requirements for intense emotional expression, witty dialogue and sound effects that range from an ominous buzz to eerie, high-pitched glissandi. Lloyd Webber and Lenehan rose impressively to the challenges.

    by Joseph McLellan

  • Beethoven Sonata: Guardian

    15th December 1987

    Edward Greenfield on Malcolm Arnold’s cello premiere

    ‘Love notes’

    MALCOLM ARNOLD, colourful and prolific among British composers, has been losing out on both those qualities in recent years. But here, in the Fantasy for solo cello he has written for Julian Lloyd Webber he has bounced back with a work generous and direct, exuberant in the way it draws out all the richest and warmest qualities of the instrument. This is a composer, one infers from every note, who loves the cello.

    It was good to have Lloyd Webber’s world premiere in his recital at Wigmore Hall anticipated by an equally fine recording, already available from ASV. Not that with Arnold’s Fantasy you need the sort of intensive preparation that many of today’s composers seem to demand for their new works.

    Arnold, the supreme professional, has managed to write music which gives the soloist plenty of chances to show off effectively without posing thorny technical problems.

    Where so many solo cello works from Bach onwards are gritty with double-stopped chords that try to imitate a full orchestra, Arnold in his seven brief linked movements puts the emphasis on warmly lyrical writing.

    Lloyd Webber responded accordingly, pointing up the sharp contrasts of tone and dynamic that Arnold has marked to avoid blandness, biting hard on the vigorous writing in the central AlIa Marcia.

    So graceful a work, I am sure, will quickly become a favourite with cellists badly needing solo music that exploits the instrument without either sawing off players’ fingers or listeners’ ears.

    For the rest of his recital, Lloyd Webber was accompanied by Peter Pettinger in music for cello and piano.

    The ardour of the performance of the Arnold led at once to an equally resonant and dramatic account of Beethoven’s last Cello Sonata, opus 102 no. 2, sometimes counted a problem work but not here.

    Beethoven in this context seemed to tower over anything the 20th century could offer – even the Debussy Sonata – cryptic, compressed, made to sound in Lloyd Webber’s gutsy performance almost as English as the pieces by Bridge and Rawsthorne with which he surrounded it.