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
