Pipes and fireworks end a stirring Scottish jamboree
” For the ultimate in graceful seduction, one had to look no further than cellist Julian Lloyd Webber…In Rococo Variations, and pieces from his brother’s Variations, his playing was like the whispering of sweet nothhings, and his nimble finger and bow work were the stuff from which dreams are made.”
ASO strikes chord in romancing crowds
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra Takuo Yuasa, conductor. Julian Lloyd Webber, cello. Adelaide Town Hall.
JUDGING by the full house for the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s opening Town Hall concert of the year, the orchestra’s enterprising publicity strategies seem to be working.
The first of three Romantic Symphonies concerts was an all-tsarist Russian program spanning the middle 1800s to the early years of our century.
Takuo Yuasa is a skilful and experienced conductor, but he started badly with a breathless reading of Glinka’s Ruslan and Ludmila, Overture, obscuring its elegant statements in a hurried dash for the finishing line.
Julian Lloyd Webber is a fine cellist and a commanding presence. Tchaikovsky’s 1876 Variations on a Rococo Theme was a splendid vehicle for his individual style, especially as it was given as the composer wrote it and not in the considerably distorted form in which it was first published.
Written for a transparently scored, Mozart size orchestra, the spare texture gives the cello plenty of room to speak, and Lloyd Webber filled the hall with a stunning range of beautiful sounds.
The virtuoso element of this piece lies in perfect clarity of melodic line rather than athletic feats of fingerwork and Lloyd Webber’s lovely tone, finely judged bowing and perfect upper register intonation made this a memorable performance.
In response to the audience’s warm reception, he played music by Malcolm Arnold, a reminder that Lloyd Webber is an enthusi¬astic supporter of new music.
The short first half left room for Rachmaninov’s enormous Second Symphony, written in the last days of Old Europe before the world changed forever in 1914.
The music perfectly reflects the atmosphere of that time – luxurious, extravagant and expansive but a shade over the top – in Russian musical terms, the revolutionary Stravinsky was getting ready to launch his first startling orchestral missiles, but this work is a fine example of the last stages of a great period.
The 24 minutes of the first movement was greeted with scat tered applause, but there were more than 40 minutes still to come and a punishing outlay of sustained energy called for.
The ASO, fresh from its Wagnerian triumph of last year, was well able to weave Rachmaninov’s elaborate tapestry of sound, unison strings in full melodic voice often counterpointing tlie strong quartet of horns led by Philip Hall.
Outstanding wind solos were Peter Duggan on cor anglais and Gregory Blackman’s sinuous and extended clarinet melody in the slow movement. A promising Start to the ASO’s mainstream concert year.
TRISTRAM CARY
Rococo Variations stunning illumination of Tchaikovsky
Tchaikovsky has been royally feted at the Florida Philharmonic ‘Proms’. Last month, Marin Alsop and Joshua Bell converged brilliantly on the Violin Concerto in a program that also held a resilient performance of the Fifth Symphony. And Wednesday night, James Judd joined his compatriot, British cellist Julian Lloyd Webber, in a performance of the Rococo Variations that was so exquisite it will remain indelible.
In decades of concertgoing, I’ve become a hopelessly spoiled aisle-sitter. I can vividly recall the Rococo Variations played incisively by such cellists as Pierre Foumier, Andre Navarra, Antonio Janigro, Leonard Rose, Mstislav Rostropovich – and, not so long ago with the Florida Philharmonic, Janos Starker, But never have I heard the intimate character of this masterwork more eloquently drawn and penetrated than by Julian Lloyd Webber.
Not only is he a superlative cellist with seemingly effortless technique, but he also is a marvelous musician who pays keen attention to tender tone coloring. He can turn fluted harmonics into the wispiest filaments of tone, and he knows all about this work as a Tchaikovskian salute to Mozart. Judd knows about such things, too. Remember how he once brought out the Hande-lian overtones in Beethoven’s Consecration of the House Overture. Well, this time there was superb transparency of orchestral texture and a chamber music rapport with Lloyd Webber. Each variation sounded freshly minted – in fact, one variation traditionally omitted since the first performance by Fitzenhagen in 1877 was restored here so that the old war horse sounded even newer. A deserved standing ovation coaxed Lloyd Webber into a poignant encore: the first movement of a Malcolm Arnold fantasy.
Judd and the Philharmonic also offered first-rate performances on their own. Tchaikovsky’s seldom-heard Hamlet Fantasy Overture sounded like a major masterwork, too, profoundly enriching in its broad theme for cellos, reinforced by violas and double basses. This is an unjustly neglected score filled with lovely woodwind parts, including that reflective oboe solo, so thoughtfully yet fluidly phrased by John Dee.
The Fourth Symphony also was exceptionally well-played, even minus the luscious tone of more famous orchestras. Judd I captured enough of the drama in the heroic moments, probing the work with extraordinary understanding of inner detail. He even clued the audience into one folk theme that inspired Tchaikovsky in this symphony by asking a Russian-speaking Philharmonic player to sing the folk tune (quite nicely) for the audience. When great music is recreated with such acute perception, it’s no longer the cake of leisure; it is the bread of life.
By JAMES ROOS
Tchaikovsky & Miaskovsky/LSO/Maxim Shostakovich (Philips)
“Lloyd Webber’s ability…sets his performance (of the Miaskovsky) apart from a previous rendition by Rostropovich that lacks the total integration with the orchestra that these two artists (Lloyd Webber and Shostakovich) bring to the piece. This is really a lovely recording of this little-known piece.”
Tchaikovsky & Miaskovsky/LSO/Maxim Shostakovich (Philips)
“Above all Lloyd Webber treats this Tchaikovsky “Rococo” Variations as chamber music, and in that respect probably comes closer than any to the composer’s original intention.”
David Denton
NICOLAI MIASKOVSKY Cello Concerto in C Minor Op. 66
SHOSTAKOVICH Adagio (from “The Limpid Stream”)
TCHAIKOVSKY Variations on a Rococo Theme Op. 33; Nocturne in D Minor
Julian Lloyd Webber (cello); London Symphony, Maxim Shostakovich
PHILIPS 434 106-2 1992, 63:48
Nicolai Miaskovsky wrote tons of music, and although some of it is not very interesting in a thematic sense, this gorgeous concerto is a real find. The opening, an elegiac and expansive slow movement, shows the hand of a master in virtually every bar. The entrance of the solo, accompanied by smooth-toned clarinets, is darkly memorable, as is the oboe counterpoint to the cello’s gradual ascent into the welcoming embrace of the upper strings and horns. The ensuing “Scherzo” features a tune that sounds almost English in its modal inflections, though it’s the finale, with its deeply poetic, quiet ending, that undoubtedly keeps this work out of the repertoire. No virtuoso showmanship here, but virtuoso musicianship in abundance. The same might be said of Julian Lloyd Webber’s performance – simple, direct, unaffected, but never unaffectionate. It draws you in and grips you from first note to last.
In the Tchaikovsky variations played as the composer wrote them, correct in order and number Lloyd Webber refuses to drool over the music the way many cellists do (even Rostropovich preferred comparative restraint). The result is perfectly in character a more nostalgic, wistful journey back in musical time than we sometimes get. Although the shorter items make attractive encores, the selections are perhaps best enjoyed separately not as a complete program heard at one sitting.
Maxim Shostakovich proves himself a tine accompanist, and Philips’ sound is outstandingly rich and well balanced.
David Hurwitz
(original version)
Recording of the Month
Tchaikovsky & Miaskovsky/LSO/Maxim Shostakovich (Philips)
“You can’t go wrong with the new Philips recording. It is the genuine article and very beautifully played.”
Adagio du ruisseau limpide. – TCHAIKOVSKI Variations rococo, Nocturne en ré mineur
Julian Lloyd Webber (violoncelle)
Orchestre Symphonique de Londres
Dir. Maxime Chostakovitch
Sous le titre ‘ d’oeuvres représtatives du post-romantisme académique russe’, l’excellent livret de P.E. Barbier nous définit le cheminement créatif et les points communs de ces quatre opus. Le Concerto dc Miaskovski (auteur entre autres de 27 Symphonies et de 9 Sonates publiées que l’on écoutera avec profit dans l’intégrale McLachlan chez Olympia) est une pure merveille d’écriture lisztienne et schuman-nienne. Le violoncelle est traité comme la voix humaine et l’orchestration très riche crée une notion et attige d espace qui permet au ta lent très improvisateur de Webber de s’exprimer.
Avec l’Adagio du ruisseau limpide de Chostakovitch. on tient la première occidentale de la quatrième partie (Adagio des cinq tableaux de cette « comédie-ballet e, chorégraphie des années 1929/1934. Avec la mise â l’index de l’opéra Lady Mac- bath de Chostakovitch et par là- même du début de la dictature musicale de l’ère nouvelle stalinienne, l’auteur du Net avait choisi un thème propre à mettre en avant l’ironie d’une action se situant entre Kholkoziens dans une ferme collective à Cuba… L’Adagio fait partie de la suite d’orchestre. Voyons-y un sublime pastiche d’un ballet tchaïkovskien (cantilène du violoncelle avec accompagnement de harpe) où, subi tement, émerge l’harmonie et la rythmique de la future Leningrad. Certes plus concertantes et moins originales, les Variations rococo et le Nocturne (tiré d’une des nombreuses transcriptions du numéro 4 de l’opus 19 pour piano seul sont joués avec une grande sobriété par Webber qui. évite toute surcharge â ces pages surannées concluant intelligemment cc récital bien ficelé.
Stéphane Friéderich