Book reviews, 1985
“Julian Lloyd Webber”s large circle of admirers will find this book written with the same lack of pomposity which characterises his many live appearances.”
Robert Mathew-Walker, Music and Musicians
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Tag: reviews1
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Travels with my cello: Guardian – Edward Greenfield
Book reviews, 1985
“…always his devotion to music, music-making and instrument which has shaped his career bubbles over in its enthusiasm.”
Edward Greenfield, Guardian
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Cradle Song
Gramophone January 1996
Julian Lloyd Webber (vc); John Lenehan, Pam Chowhan, Richard Rodney Bennett (pfs).
Philips © CD 442 426-2PH (57 minutes: DDD).
This album provides a companion to Julian Lloyd Webber’s much admired “Cello Song” a couple of years ago (10/93), and once again he has skilfully managed to choose a sequence of pieces that retains the same overall mood without monotony – though that consideration may in any case not much worry someone seeking late-night ‘easy listening’. This attractive disc actually begins with a piece by Lloyd Webber his first ever and written in 1992 for his six-week-old son David. Indeed, the inspiration for this whole album of lullabies is, he tells us, “the innocence of childhood” and the cellist also thinks it his “most personal recording”.
There are 21 tracks here and all are attractive music from, and for, a child’s world, though not everything is strictly speaking a cradle song. Lloyd Webber plays consistently with an ideal intimacy and care, and John Lenehan, who also composed the lullaby called Alice, is an excellent partner – though Richard Rodney Bennett and Pam Chowhan also participate in their own arrangements. The thoughtful and imaginative booklet- essay is on cradle songs generally and doesn’t attempt to deal with the individual pieces, but few purchasers of this disc will mind that. They will also not mind that the recording, close but not distractingly so, favours the lovely sound of Lloyd Webber’s cello. This attractive disc deserves to be very popular.
CH
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Cello Moods
Classic CD July 1999This ripe-toned assemblage of cello miscellanea celebrates Julian Lloyd Webber’s 15-year association with Philips Classics. Throughout this period, he’s made world-premiere recordings of over 50 works, and there are surprises amongst more familiar and populist fare here, too. The eloquent Rheinberger Cantilena (from Organ Sonata No. 11) is as compelling in this reworking as it is unexpected, while the Caccini and Glazunov works are encountered far less often than either deserves.
Otherwise, many of the usual favourites are included, though this excellent disc is not a compilation from previous Philips issues, but an entirely new programme taped only last year. Quite at home in lighter fare as in pivotal repertoire, Julian Lloyd Webber lavishes minute care over every detail in these accomplished and strongly idiomatic readings. With diligent and sympathetic orchestral accompaniments (principally from James Judd and the Royal Philharmonic) and a splendidly open and natural recording ambience, this is a far from run-of- the-mill collection. Recommended.
Michael Jameson
*****
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A Tale of Two Cellos: Birmingham Post
January 31st 2014
Review: Julian and Jiaxin Lloyd Webber at Bramall Music Building, Birmingham
Cellist Julian and wife Jiaxin must have had an interesting time choosing a programme to suit the many tastes anticipated. With confident support from pianist Pam Chowhan more than 20 pieces covered a wide time–scale with some charming arrangements of songs and interestingly adjusted works for the three musicians.
Father William and brother Andrew both featured with heart stopping sonorous works:Moon Silver, Pie Jesu – truly lovely.
It is said that the cello is the closest instrument to the human voice, so with A Tale of Two Cellos Mr and Mrs sang musically throughout with true togetherness.
Maggie Cotton
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A Tale of Two Cellos
Music and Vision January 2014
A Tale of Two Cellos – Uncommon piquancy
Music for two cellos –
heard by HOWARD SMITH
This release makes a perfect gift. Naxos 8.573251 has twenty-one miniatures — cello duet arrangements, collectively titled A Tale of Two Cellos and featuring Julian Lloyd Webber with his wife Jiaxin Lloyd Webber, plus accompanist John Lenehan, harpist Catrin Finch and others.
Mr Lloyd Webber’s track record is firmly established, though Jiaxin’s reputation began with her graduation at Shanghai Conservatory of Music in 1997. More recently (2001) she completed a Master’s degree at Auckland University, New Zealand.
Jiaxin became noted as a chamber music player and a founder member of the Aroha String Quartet. She played frequently with both the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra and New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. With the Auckland Symphony Orchestra she performed cello concertos by Dvorák, Elgar and Lalo.
Since her marriage to Julian Lloyd Webber the two have performed for BBC Radio 3, Classic FM, CNN Global TV and BBC TV. They have recorded for Universal Classics and Naxos and they were scheduled to make two further recordings in 2013 as well as touring together with the European Union Chamber Orchestra. The duo disc has uncommon piquancy heightened by its diverse programme and repeated surprise.
The Lloyd Webbers steer clear of tried and true items such as Saint-Saëns’ The Swan or the opening solo from Von Suppe’s Poet and Peasant overture.
They enterprisingly cover a span from Monteverdi’s early Renaissance work to modern times. Who could ask more ?
The duo skip Schubert’s beloved Ave Maria Op 52 No 6 (Ellens dritter Gesang) in favour of Saint-Saëns’ Ave Maria in A major (1860), arranged by Julian Lloyd Webber for two cellos and piano.
Chiquilin de Bachin (‘The Little Beggar Boy’) emerged through the partnership of Uruguayan poet Horacio Ferrer (born 1933) and Astor Piazzolla. They recorded it together in 1970.
While as far back as circa 1619 we’re treated to Claudio Monteverdi’s Interrotte speranze, eterna fede, a madrigal for two voices from Book 7, SV 132.
Indeed between them Mssrs L-W and Lenehan have adapted items from seldom heard corners of the larger melodic repertoire to riveting effect.
Typically heard around parlour pianos in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was Sweet and Low by Sir Joseph Barnby (1838-1896), arranged by Lloyd Webber for three cellos and harp.
Shostakovitch wrote The Gadfly Op 97 ‘Prelude’ for a 1955 Soviet film. It was also used for a BBC/PBS miniseries, Reilly, Ace of Spies.
Fundamental to Indian thought and most likely composed between 1500 and 1000 BC, the Vedic hymns were eventually attributed to the divine breath or to a vision of the seers, viz Choral Hymns for four cellos and harp from the Rig Veda, third group, Op 26 No 1, Hymn to the Dawn.
There is also a brief variant on the endlessly popular Greensleeves (‘My Lady Greensleeves’, anon / Vaughan-Williams).
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A Tale of Two Cellos
The Strad January 2014
A Tale of Two Cellos
A Tale of Two Cellos There’s nothing quite like the mellifluous tone of two cellos playing in harmony – and by the end of this attractive disc you’ll be well nigh saturated. In 21 short arrangements, all but one by Julian Lloyd Webber, he and his wife Jiaxin, formerly principal cello in the Auckland Chamber Orchestra, prove their innate musical chemistry in a whole bevy of two-part pieces.
Enjoyment there is aplenty among the gracefully flowing lines of pieces like Saint-Saëns’s Ave Maria, the soaring melody of Hahn’s Si mes vers avaient des ailes, the sad Piazzolla waltz, full of feeling, and the gentle lilt of William Lloyd Webber’s Moon Silver, with the two cellists moving as one, their skilfully combined sound enhanced by the limpidly clear recording. The harp comes into its own in Holst’s Hymn to the Dawn, where the Lloyd Webbers are joined by two former BBC Young Musician winners, the four cellos perfectly blended in a track of rare beauty.
JANET BANKS
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A Tale of Two Cellos
Gramophone December 2013
A Tale of Two Cellos Review
Two-cello arrangements from husband-and-wife players
This is expressly a CD for those who enjoy a pair of cellos, beautifully played and blended together in slow lyrical tunes, with a stylish piano accompaniment.
I especially enjoyed Greensleeves in Quilter’s version, and the beautiful cello timbre in Pergolesi’s lovely Dolorosa. Dvorak’s Autumn Lament and Schumann’s Summer Calm are also quite haunting. So with Julian Lloyd Webber at the helm, you may enjoy many more of these arrangements – particularly if the disc is dipped into. The recording is beautifully balanced and natural.
Ivan March
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A Tale of Two Cellos
Words and Music
A Tale of Two Cellos Review
Dynamic Duo
A Tale of Two Cellos Disc of the Day: The cello duo Julian and Jiaxin Lloyd Webber present on this Naxos disc their engaging recital programme more or less from Cadogan Hall last week. He, dishevelled but suave, and she, enjoying his witticisms and playing the more difficult part in a Vivaldi arrangement not on the disc, lean in towards each other in intense dialogue for Piazzolla’s waltz Chiquilin de Bachin.
Mostly they play in soothing thirds and sixths, as in the opener Schubert’s Ave Maria where they mollify the song’s regret. Counterpoint comes with Purcell’s Lost is my Quiet which in concert Julian dedicated to the disturbed nights since Jiaxin gave birth to their daughter three years ago. They play the Tune-A-Day hit Sweet and Low with lulling beautiful tone.
In concert, he let her have a go on his Stradivarius here, and her sound rang mellow and light. Missing from the concert is brother Andrew’s Pie Jesu, but not father William’s Moon Silver, a gentle three-time dance of wistful elegance. Harpist Catrin Finch plays the accompaniment in the Dolorosa from Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater and cellist Guy Johnston in the Monteverdi madrigal Interotte speranza, giving us the burning vibrancy of three cellos and harp in the most exquisite of Baroque dissonances. Loveliest though comes last in Arvo Paert’s Estonian Lullaby which stutters, starts and ends mid-phrase like one nodding off…..
Rick Jones
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A Tale of Two Cellos
Spirited – The Gazette of the English Music Festival December 2013
A Tale of Two Cellos CD Review
A Tale of Two CellosAlthough this disc only contains a handful of works by British composers, it nevertheless demands a mention for the beauty of the playing featured thereon — and, of course, for those couple of English works.
The disc ranges from Monteverdi and Pergolesi through to Saint-Saens and Rachmaninov in a rather charming programme that works extremely well as a whole; the first English piece we come across is Holst’s Hymn to the Dawn from the Choral Hymns from the Rig Veda, arranged for four cellos and harp by Julian Lloyd Webber. Julian and Jiaxin Lloyd Webber are here joined by Guy Johnston and Laura van der Heijden (cellos) and Catrin Finch; fascinatingly, this arrangement really does work rather spectacularly well.
Roger Quilter’s My Lady (Greensleeves) follows in a particularly rich and sonorous rendition; William Lloyd Webber’s Moon Silver is rather lovely, as is the atmospheric version of Purcell’s Lost is my Quiet for ever; while Joseph Barnby’s Sweet and Low starts to bring the disc to a gentle and yet enchanting close; it is followed by Quilter’s Summer Sunset, which provides the penultimate track, before the disc is finally brought to a lilting finish with Arvo Pärt’s much-loved Estonian Lullaby.
Classic CD July 1999