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Category: Reviews

  • 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

    The 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 Rachmaninoff’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 Rachmaninoff’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 Reviews: Guardian

    The 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.

  • Travels with my cello: Birmingham Post

    “…a succession of hilarious anecdotes…continuing through a brilliant career with amusing but pungent comment.”

    Barrie Grayson, Birmingham Post

  • Britten Third Suite for Cello: Guardian

    The Guardian 11th March 1981

    “Webber gives the expected virtuoso performance…the prize of the ASV collection. Lloyd Webber splendidly brings out what might almost be thought of as the schizophrenic side of the piece, the play between registers high and low, used not just to imply full orchestral textures but to interweave opposing ideas. With Lloyd Webber the climax of the Passacaglia is extroadinarily powerful, and his commitment is just as intense in the two pieces on the reverse – a brief poignant Elegy by Frank Bridge and John Ireland’s Cello Sonata.”

  • Britten Third Suite for Cello: Daily Telegraph

    The Daily Telegraph 20th November 1980

    Julian Lloyd Webber, Eric Parkin, Eric Fenby

    IT IS some time since London has had an opportunity to hear a programme of works for cello and piano by four of our most distinguished composers, performed with such authenticity and technical perfection as was the case at Wigmore Hall last night.

    In Ireland’s Sonata in G minor (1923) Julian Lloyd Webber and Eric Parkin displayed instrumental mastery in projecting the strong and eloquent themes. A wonderful effect was achieved by Mr Parkin’s sustained and satisfying line in the haunting principal theme of the slow movement following on from Mr Lloyd Webber’s incisive opening. This finale had an unusual strength, drive and attack from both players.

    A similar sense of purpose marked their handling of the long crescendo in Bridge’s Elegie (1911) and in his arresting Scherzetto (c. 1902), recently discovered at the Royal College of Music and a first London performance. Delius’s rarely heard Sonata. (1916) brought Eric Fenby on to the platform. This imaginative pianist, who was the composer’s amanuensis from 1928 until his death, provided a close yet independent partnership with Mr Lloyd Webber’s rich tone. On his own in Britten’s Suite, Mr Lloyd Webber, who incidentally performed the very testing programme without music, showed how mature his art has become.

    D.A.W.M.

  • Britten Third Suite for Cello

    The Times 20th November 1980

    Julian Lloyd Webber plays Britten’s Cello Suite no 3

    WIGMORE HALL

    Lloyd Webber/ Parkin/Fenby

    Ken Russell’s film A Sons of Summer has recently been largely responsible for bringing to wider notice the name of Eric Fenby, the young composer who spent six years as amanuensis to the , blind and paralysed Delius. But long ago Fenby’s own published account of the episode, as well as his constant devotion to Delius’s music an enthusiasm he encourages in others through his teaching, writing and performances have brought him well-earned recognition in musical circles. And last night’s recital showed that at a sprightly 74, Fenby still remains Delius’s most faithful champion.

    Together with Julian Lloyd Webber he gave a glowing account of the Cello Sonata, a work’ he claims is much misunderstood by performers. Here we were shown that its melodies can be strong and muscular as well as broad and flowing; phrases were turned tidily, shaded subtly, and an overriding continuity of thought seemed to shape the whole.

    For the rest of the programme Julian Lloyd Webber was joined by Eric Parkin, a partnership that proved equally successful. John Ireland’s Cello Sonata plumbs the depths of both instruments, and both players responded with a warmth and sensibility that confirmed a special affinity with Ireland’s style.

    Both the Ireland sonata and the youthful Frank Bridge pieces that followed were approahed in a positive way that is all too rare in this sort of music. Phrasing was broad and long-breathed but never overstretched; hushed chromatic harmonies lingered but never outstayed their welcome. These were convincing and assured performances.

    Mr Lloyd Webber remained undaunted by Britten’s third unaccompanied Cello Suite, written for Rostropovich in 1971. The haunting Russian tunes that form its basis were given in sombre, almost funereal tones, with a folklike simplicity that contrasted well with the more manical technical exploits, where Mr Lloyd Webber impressed us in a more artful way.

    Judith Nagley

  • Britten Third Suite for Cello: Guardian

    The Guardian 11th November 1980

    Julian Lloyd Webber plays Britten’s Cello Suite no 3

    WIGMORE HALL

    Edward Greenfield

    Webber Recital

    NO MORE dedicated advocate of English cello music has emerged in recent years than Julian Lloyd-Webber, and it was good to find him attracting a large audience for what a few years ago might have seemed a very specialised programme of Ireland, Delius, Bridge and Britten.

    True, it was Britten’s Third Cello Suite for solo cello which at the end of the programme conveyed a degree of concentration in the argument largely missing till then. One might have expected that in his third essay in this inevitably restricted form Britten’s inspiration would have contracted, but Lloyd-Webber if anything more than the dedicatee, Rostropovich, proves the opposite with eight movements, jewelled in their compression, leading to the culminating passacaglia and epilogue.

    As a splendid start to the programme came the G minor Cello Sonata of John Ireland with Eric Parkin, long dedicated to the music of this composer, matching Lloyd Webber in responding to the taut, neurasthenic side of the composer as well as the relaxed warmth of the all-too-brief central slow movement.

    For Delius’s elusive Cello Sonata the doyen of Delians, to whose toils we actually owe the last works, Eric Fenby, added his unique authority. Alas, unlike the Double Concerto written about the same time, it is a work which meanders even in a performance as persuasive as this.

    Edward Greenfield

  • Britten Cello Sonata

    Guardian 15th October 1980

    St John’s – Park Lane Group

    Re-hearing Britten’s 1961 Cello Sonata, Opus 65, written at the start of his association with Rostropovitch, was an uncanny experience. I had forgotten just how potent were the dark elegaic landscapes, the abrasive, hard-hitting disturbances. The intensity of Julian Lloyd Webber’s performance, grave and wild by turns, was riveting.

    Edward Seckerson

  • Britten Cello Sonata

    Music and Musicians April 1980

    “Julian Lloyd Webber’s intelligent and lively artistic personality ensured some marvellously tough characterisation in Britten’s Cello Sonata. It now goes without saying that here is one of the most thoroughly-grounded, assured techniques among cellists. The pizzicato Scherzo was a tour-de-force of scarifying nerve, and those glissandos towards the end of the March were as firmly drawn and bitingly satirical as those on Rostropovich’s classic recording.”

    ANDREW KEENER