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Tag: reviews3

  • Tchaikovsky Rococo Variations

    LE DEVOIR 2Oth May 1992

    Joindre l’utile à l’agréable

    Concerto pour violoncelle op.66; Chostakovitch, Le ruisseau limpide:

    (version originale)

    Nocturne en ré mineur Philips

    English Chamber Orchestra. Dir. Yan-Pascal Tortelier ; Saint-Saens,Concerto pour violoncelle op.33, Allegro appassionato op,43; Fauré,Elégie op.24; D’Indy, Lied op.19;

    Honegger, Concerto pour violoncelle. Philips 432 084-2.

    Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Dir.

    Yehudi Menuhin: Elgar, Concerto pour violoncelle op.85. Variations sur un thème original Enigma op.36.

    « ÉTUDIANT, je rêvais de pouvoir un jour faire des disques. Mais comment être certain d’y parvenir, les interprètes étant infiniment plus nombreux que, les grands éditeurs discographiques pour les enregistrer. Par ailleurs, à l’âge de 15 ans, vous ne savez pas comment votre jeu va évoluer. Allez-vous résister aux pressions de toutes sortes? II y a tant de facteurs à prévoir. »

    À 40 ans, Julian Lloyd Webber s’est à présent taillé une place au..soleil parmi les meilleurs violoncellistes anglais de sa génération et cela, sans lien direct avec la florissante carrière «pop » de son frère aîné Andrew (l’auteur du Fantôme de l’opéra). Il affirme ne lui devoir rien, ni ses disques (il en a signés 10 chez Philips), ni son superbe Stradivarius, acquis en 1983 dans un encan et qu’U a payé difficilement, précise-t-ii, avec un emprunt de la banque.

    Est-elle bonne ou mauvaise, cette relation que certains s’empressent d’établir entre lui et son aîné? D’abord indécis, il finit par avouer qu’elle s’avère plutôt négative en ce qu’elle le prive du bénéfice du doute aux yeux de nombreux mélomanes. Différent, il prétend l’être et pouvoir le prouver.

    Aujourd’hui, Julian partage ses efforts entre le concert et l’enregistrement en essayant de rendre ,l’un et l’autre complémentaires. Il croit que le second devrait être le reflet fidèle du premier… une photographie, en quelque sorte. Aussi voit-il avec un vif intérêt la possibilité de graver un CD à partir d’un concert en public. Pour diminuer les risques, on pour- i-ait faire un montage en utilisant deux ou trois exécutions de la même pièce.

    Pour le moment Cependant, il déplore que l’abus du montage ait eu pour effet de stériliser un trop grand nombre de disques — acquise de cette manière la perfection engendre des lectures qui se ressemblent toutes et qui ont hélas perdu l’originalité et la fraîcheur des 78 tours d’autrefois, ceux de Pablo Casals ou de sa compatriote Beatrice Harrison qu’il semble admirer particulièrement.

    Il souhaite laisser un héritage à la postérité. « Nous pouvons donner autant de concerts que possible clans une vie, au bout du compte, il n’eii restera rien. Alors que les enregistrements, comme les œuvres du compositeur, nous survivront. »

    A certains égards, cette pensée lui paraît troublante. Regardez le nombre incroyable de versions que l’on continue de publier des mêmes oeuvres. » Devant ce constat, il a tenté une approche, différente dans la conception d’un disque. Prenons le Concerto d’Elgar, par exemple. « Je voulais le faire avec Menuhin qui à déjà enregistré le concerto de violon en 1932 avec le compositeur au pupitre (édité chez EMI, CDII 7 69786- 2) — ce lien m’a semblé dune importance toute particulière. »

    Quant au reste du programme, j’avais pensé que la Sérénade pour coi-des op.20 et l’Introduction et allegro pour cordes op.47 auraient fait le complément tout désigné; cependant Menuhin tenait à enregistrer le Variations enigma. Son choix prévalut en dépit même de la réticence de Philips qui venait de l’inscrire à son catalogue avec André Previn à la tête du même Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (Philips 416 813-2). Je me rendis à son désir car il me sembla que l’idée était encore mei1leire puisqu’il s’agissait d’une oeuvrè, importante et qu’ayant bien connu Elgar, Yehudi avait là quelque chose nous léguer. Par ailleurs, je ne, liç soucie pas d’être la seule vedette d’un disque quand le but premier est de trouver la meilleure façon de servir la musique d’abord.

    Le disque russe Tchaikovski/Miaskovski/Chostakovitch emprunte la même démarche. li fut usé avec Maxime Chostakovitch (‘lé fils de Dimitri), ce qui, selon Llà9d Webber, en garantit l’authenticite. C’est d’ailleurs la partition de Nikolai Miaskovki qui lui révéla les qualités exceptionnelles d’un chef malheureusement sous-estimé.

    Rappelons que Miaskovski fut l’auteur de 27 Symphonies; il acheva sort unique Concerto pour violoncelle en 1944 (six ans avant sa mort) à l’intention du violoncelliste Sviatolav Knushevitski, Même si d’aucuns taxeront cette musique d’académique”, il demeure qu’elle ne mérite pas in purgatoire qu’on lui a fait subir, considérant qu’elle nous entraîne fort heureusement hors des lieux communs de la littérature concertante pour violoncelle ordinairement en registrée.

    Après Honegger et Miaskovski, Julian Lloyd Webber se propose de. ressortir des oubliettes le Concerto pour violoncelle que Paul Hindemith, écrivit en 1940 — à ne pas confondre, avec l’Opus 36/2, terminé én l9.5 Etant donné qu’on ne les joue pratiquement plus en concert, il espère que sès disques les ramèneront l’attention de chefs-d’orchestre qui les ajouteront à leur répertoire.

    Voilà donc une façon intelligente de faire quelque chose d’utile. D’autant qu’ici, l’interprète possède une solide technique instrumentale belle compréhension des texte’ et une admirable sensibilité musicale.

    Carol Bergeron

  • Tchaikovsky Rococo Variations

    Gramophone May 1992

    (original version)

    MIASKOVSKY Cello Concerto in C minor,Op.66.

    SHOSTAKOVICH The Limpid Stream. Op.39 Adagio.

    Nocturne, Op. 19 No. 4.

    Julian Lloyd Webber (vc); London Symphony Orchestra / Maxim Shostakovich.

    Philips CD 434 106-2PH (63 minutes:DDD).

    A valuable disc, and an enjoyable one. Miaskovsky’s Cello Concerto has remained unjustly neglected by record companies since Rostropovich’s 1956 EMI recording with Sargent and the Philharmonia (available recently in a fine CD transfer, 11/8 – but since deleted). The Shostakovich Adagio as far as I can tell, has never been recorded in this form. It does turn up in the 1951 Ballet Suite No. 2 – slightly cut, and with unhappily bolstered orchestration by the Suite’s compiler, Lev Atovmian. The relative restraint of this original 1935 score, particularly in a performance as expressive as this one, is infinitely preferable, trioiigh its brief, central climax still retains its overwhelming force. Stalin’s reaction to Lady Macbethin 1936 is common knowledge; less well known is that The Limpid Stream too was condemned by Pravda under the caption “Falsity in Ballet”.

    Not even Miaskovsky escaped the State’s accusing finger in the second round of condemnations (in 1948), despite winning a Stalin Prize for his Cello Concerto and being titled “People’s Arlist” in 1946. The concerto (1944-5) is modestly orchestrated – the orchestral forces are identical to those used by Brahms in his First Piano Concerto, and it shares with the Elgar and Delius concertos an autumnal mood, albeit wilh an essentially Russian brooding and introspection, given full weight here with Lloyd Webber and Maxim Shostakovich, at 32 minutes, taking four minutes longer than Rostropovich and Sargent. They take their time over the Ruconi Variations, as well: a more ‘authentic’ account of the Original version (described on the score as the “Composer’s Version” i.e. without the cut and rearranged order of the ‘standard’ version) than those recorded by Walllisch (Chandos) and Isserlis (Virgin Classics), both of whom incorporate a few features from the ‘standard’ version – though you would he unlikely to spot the differences, mainly in the fifth variation, without a score. Lloyd Webber’s smooth, rich tone, has not the faintest trace of a rough edge: this is supremely elegant playing.

    Jonathan Swain

  • Stanford Cello Sonata No.2

    Fono Forum June 1993

    British Music Vol.2 CD

    Stanford, Sonate Nr. 2 für Violoncello und Klavier, Bridge,

    Elegy und Scherzetto, Ireland,

    Sonate für Violoncello und Klavier g-Moll;

    Julian Lloyd Webber (Violoncello), John McCabe (Klavier);

    (AD: 1979, 1992)

    Eine CD nicht nur für Freunde britischer Musik! Unverständlich, warum Stanfords von Brahms beeinflußte, aber durchaus eigenständige, melodienselige zweite Cellosonate bisher noch nie aufgenommen wurde. Irelands Sonate geht einen Schritt weiter, ist suchender und komplexer. Julian Lloyd Webber scheint die Musik dieser beiden Außenseiter wirklich am Herzen zu liegen. Sein Spiel ist rundum überzeugend, mit elegischem Grundton, aber nie auf- gesetzt pathetisch.

    J.S.

  • Stanford Cello Sonata No.2

    Classic CD – British Music Vol.2 CD

    CLASSIC CD (April 1993)

    Bridge: Elegy (1905); Scherzetto (1902);

    Ireland: Cello Sonata in G minor (1923);

    Stanford: Cello sonata No. 2, Op. 39 (1893); String Quartet No. 2 (1907-13)

    Julian Lloyd Webber (cello); John McCabe (piano)

    Julian Llovd Webber and John McCabe continue their survey of British celio music, begun with an enterprising recital of works by Britten, Rawsthorne, Ireland, Amold and Walton (ASV DCA592). This second volume is notable above all for the worid premiere recordings of Stanford’s sonata and tbe Bridge Scherzzetto, both of which receive sympathetic and persuasive readings. Whether they’ll launch in to the active repertoire of other players remains to be seen. I rather suspect they won’t, though the Bridge makes a splendid encore piece.

    The Stanford is an admirable, large-scale work with clear debts to Brahms, but without quite his intensity of characteristic ardour or melodic flair. Still, the cello repertoire isn’t yet so large that such works can be justifiably ignored. Lloyd Webber’s eloquence and commitment are matched by McCabe’s authority and verve, though both players could fruitfully adopt a wider range of dynamic and colours.

    The recording quality is superior throughout, the remastered Ireland sonata – from 1979 – holding its own against the more recent Stanford and Bridge.

    Jeremy Siepmann

  • Stanford Cello Sonata No.2

    Gramophone February 1993

    Stanford, Bridge, Ireland

    “Lloyd Webber and McCabe give what seems to me an ideal performance, for they pursue it with great flair, imagination and strength. I recommend this disc unreservedly.”

  • Stanford Cello Sonata No.2

    BBC Music Magazine January 1993

    British Cello Music Vol.2 CD

    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

  • Stanford Cello Sonata No.2

    Penguin GUide to CDs 2000/1

    British Cello Music Vol.2

    ‘British cello music’, Vol. 2

    (with John McCabe, piano)

    BRIDGE: Elegy; Scherzetto. IRELAND: Sonata in G min.

    The Stanford Second Cello sonata (1893 — written between the Fourth and Fifth Symphonies) is revealed here as an inspired work whose opening theme flowers into great lyrical warmth on Lloyd Webber’s ardent bow. The focus of the recording is a little diffuse, but that serves to add to the atmosphere. Ireland’s Sonata, too, is among his most richly inspired works, a broad-spanning piece in which ambitious, darkly intense outer movements frame a most beautiful Poco largamente. Again Lloyd Webber, who has long been a passionate advocate of the work, conveys its full expressive power. The Bridge Elegy (written as early as 1911) is another darkly poignant evocation which points forward to the sparer, more austere style of the later Bridge, and the Scherzetto (even earlier, 1902) makes a winning encore: it should ideally have been placed at the end of the recital. John McCabe is a sympathetic partner — in spite of the balance — but this collection offers what are among Lloyd Webber’s finest performances on disc.

  • Stanford Cello Sonata No.2

    Fanfare June 1997

    BRITISH CELLO MUSIC, Volume I & II

    Julian Lloyd Webber’s performances of British music always carry the imprimatur of authority. and transmit a palpable sense of conviction that never fails to win new devotees to this area of the cello literature. I am especially happy, then, to welcome these splendid offerings back to the catalogs. Lloyd Webber is an artist of missionary enterprise, and his playing is underpinned by a technical assurance that vouchsafes his preeminence as the foremost living exponent of England’s cellistic oeuvre. As a result of his advocacy, works like those collected on these two ASV issues arc increasingly seen as being emblematic of a unique nationalistic subgenre. That these two CDs embrace between them no fewer than six world-premiere recordings bespeaks as much. But that the music is played with such understanding, affection, and profundity of utterance outstrips regular expectations.

    Britten’s Third Suite dates from the spring of 1971, and was premiered by Rostropovich (for whom the previous two Suites and the Cello Symphony were also written) in December 1974. The present performance, which dates from August 1979, is of special import, since it was in fact the first commercial recording of the piece, and it still holds its own in an increasingly competitive field. Julian Lloyd Webber’s account has both the pliant elasticity and the requisite expressive insights to make the most of its frisson and fantasy, but there is a deeper, darker, more elegiac core to this music. Britten’s implementation of the Kontakion, the Russian Orthodox hymn for the departed, is well documented, as is his decision to include an alternative version from English liturgy, and Julian Lloyd Webber plays the English Hymnal interpolation here. The Thema “Sacher,” an intriguing, unaccompanied cryptogram on the letters S-A-C-H-E-R, honored the conductor on the occasion of his seventieth birthday in 1976. A slight sixty-two seconds in duration, the current performance evidences Britten’s ingenuity in the genre, and the playing is magical. Alan Rawsthome’s cello sonata of 1949 (pithy, driven, sometimes truculent, but never crass), makes clever use of recurrent, cyclic themes as earlier motifs are revisited in the Finale: at the time of writing, no other recording exists, so a reading of this quality is the more welcome for its reappearance. The pianist here. and in the remaining accompanied works discussed here (in fact, there is only one other in the case of the first of these two discs, and that is a beguilingly enraptured account of John Ireland’s The Holy Boy) is the pianist and composer John McCabe, with whom Julian Lloyd Webber has enjoyed an especially fruitful collaboration.

    The remaining solo works here are by Sir Malcolm Arnold and Sir William Walton. The former’s 1987 Fantasy for solo cello is, in my view, a splendid addition to the repertoire. Cast in seven highly contrasted movements, its sophistication lurks behind an inscrutability that Hugo Cole describes as “Chinese economy of means.” It is an apt description, and Lloyd Webber’s account (still the only one in the catalog) focuses skillfully on the composer’s desire to draw out the naturalistic, rather than virtuosic, side of the instrument’s persona. The Walton Passacaglia is built along traditional lines (eight-measure theme and ten variations); it condenses Altonian severity and acerbity down to a solitary instrumental voice, and does so masterfully. This performance is mesmeric.

    The second release is devoted to fine readings from both artists of sonatas by Sir Charles Villiers Standford and John Ireland, and two characteristic miniatures by Frank Bridge. The Sonata in G Minor by John Ireland (1923) has been examined in these pages in context of the Marco Polo disc from Raphael Wallfisch and John York (Marco Polo 8.223718). Much as 1 found a lot to admire here (the program is a valuable one, also including the Edmund Rubbra sonata in G Minor, op. 60, and the superb A-Minor Sonata by E. J. Moeran). there remains, on comparison with this ASV version, a degree of blandness and discernible reluctance at times to probe much beyond the outer veneer of the notes. Hence, Julian Lloyd Webber’s playing has instantly more appeal and commu- nicative depth, and John McCabe’s management of the taxing piano part is a model of restraint? perhaps it takes a composer well versed in the ways of both instruments to make this music really work texturally? Of the Bridge pairing, Lloyd Webber relates in his insert note his happenstance discovery of the Scherzetto in a collection of manuscripts at the Royal College of Music, London. He gave the modern premiere of the piece, seventy-seven years after its composition, in April 1976; this slight but delicious encore piece is an ideal foil to the somber mood of the preceding Elegy, dating from 1905. Both performances arc admirable. The other large-scale work is the majestic and uncommonly Brahmsian Second Sonata (op. 93?1893) by Stanford. This work, as deserving of a niche in the repertoire as the similarly neglected Elegiac Variations by Sir Donald Francis Tovey (played quite decently by Rebecca Rust and David Aptcr on Marco Polo 8.223637), receives a robust and impassioned performance here. and. like several of the works contained on these ASV issues, is otherwise unavailable. To sum up. Julian Lloyd Webber’s striking and compelling performances arc of consistent excellence, and recorded sound is likewise entirely serviceable. My only gripe is that the labels with which he is associated, ASV and Philips, have yet to recognize both the musical significance and commercial viability of this area of the cello literature. If they were to relent, however, they would find no better artist for the task than Julian Lloyd Webber, whose performances may be unreservedly commended.

    Michael Jameson

  • Schumann Cello Concerto

    The Guardian 2nd June 1984

    Schumann Cello Concerto, Queen Elizabeth Hall, London

    English Chamber Orchestra/Stephen Barlow

    “Julian Lloyd Webber took an unusually leisurely view of Schumann’s Cello Concerto…..it was good to hear the elaborate passages as real music, not scrambled through. The slow movement once or twice trembled on the edge of sentimentality but this was a warm and communicative performance.”

    Hugo Cole

  • Saint Saens Cello Concerto no1

    The Mail on Sunday 15th April 2001

    Julian Lloyd Webber plays Saint-Saens Cello Concerto

    For he’s a jolly good cello…

    David Mellor

    Julian Lloyd Webber was 50 yesterday, a fitting moment to pay tribute to an outstanding artist and one of music’s nicest and most approachable of men. He recognises no musical barriers and effortlessly straddles the divide between popular and serious that cuts off so many others from their audience.

    His next album will be arrangements of his brother’s most memorable melodies. But that same Julian Lloyd Webber is touring north of the border this week, giving the world premiere of a notably uncompromising piece by Scotland’s most promising serious composer, James MacMillan, his Cello Sonata No 2.

    Julian has never despised a good tune and throughout his career has either made himself or commis¬sioned from others arrangements of great melodies from opera or the repertoire of other instruments. He reasons: why should the devil have all the good tunes when the cello always sounds the noblest of the lot? And few make it sound more beautiful than Julian on his Stradivarius.

    So, on his discs, Gounod’s ‘Ave Maria’ and Bach’s ‘Jesu, Joy Of Man’s Desiring’ rub shoulders with an award-winning Elgar Cello Concerto, while ‘Softly Awake My Heart’ from Samson And Delilah sits comfortably alongside the world premiere recording of the Cello Concerto the great Rodrigo himself wrote for Julian in 1982.

    Julian has made more than 50 world premiere recordings, pushing out the boundaries of the cello repertoire in all directions. Michael Nyman wrote a concerto for cello and saxophone for him, while Gavin Bryars achieved considerable kudos from his concerto for Julian, ‘A Farewell To Philosophy’.

    Julian’s discography is a long one, so let me pull out two plums. The recordings he made for RCA in the early Eighties have been gathered together in a twofer. Celebration, in honour of his birthday and include, as well as the Rodrigo recording, some outstanding English music: Delius’s Concerto, an unjustly neglected piece, and Hoist’s Invocation, which is heard today solely because of Julian’s efforts.

    Philips started recording him in 1984 and some of the finest fruits of his labours for them have been put on to an inexpensive two-CD set entitled Favourite Cello Concertos. Here his outstanding Elgar, with Yehudi Menuhin conducting, is coupled with a particularly fine account of the Dvorak Concerto recorded in Prague with the Czech Philharmonic.

    There is the original version of Tchaikovsky’s lovable Rococo Var¬iation and a stunning Saint-Saens First Concerto with the son of another cellist, Jan Pascal Toitelier, on the podium. This recording more than any other shows Julian at his absolute best. Every nuance has been digested and rehearsed, so what you get is a remarkably detailed reading, with all sorts of things you do not hear elsewhere making their impression, without damaging the overall sweep of this commanding work.

    Julian has never taken his fame for granted and practises several hours a day. When he started there were some who suggested he was benefiting from the Lloyd Webber name. I am equally certain that the name has often inhibited recognition of just how special he is.

    Why not judge for yourselves, not just from the discs, but from a celebratory concert to be given by Julian and his brother at the Royal Albert Hall on June 1, when they will play in public for the first time music from the forthcoming Julian Plays Andrew CD. Tickets are reasonably priced and the cause, the Prince’s Trust, is a worthwhile one. I’m not missing it. Neither should you.