Julian Lloyd Webber, one of the world’s most influential and creative classical musicians, talks about his work and music
BY BEN WEST
“Retirement is a swear word to me, I don’t know what it means,” says Julian Lloyd Webber, looking especially studious against a wall-to-ceiling backdrop of books.
Despite being forced to step down from public performance in 2014 due to a neck injury that weakened his right (bowing) arm – an experience he described as “devastating” – the celebrated musician has been busier than ever. Although stepping down from being principal of Royal Birmingham Conservatoire in September last year, he continues to be passionately involved with music, musical education and charitable causes.
He has enjoyed an extraordinary career. As a solo cellist he has performed with many of the world’s greatest orchestras and conductors, such as the Berlin and the Czech Philharmonic Orchestras, the London Symphony Orchestra, and every leading symphony and chamber orchestra in the UK, in partnership with such conductors as Georg Solti and Andrew Davis. He was the first legal busker on the London Underground, and has also collaborated with a wide range of legendary musicians, including Stephane Grappelli, Cleo Laine, Nigel Kennedy, Katherine Jenkins, Tim Rice and Elton John.
To celebrate his 70th birthday on 14 April, Decca has launched a three-CD box set, The Singing Strad. It features celebrated recordings spanning two decades. A centrepiece is his award-winning recording of Elgar’s Cello Concerto conducted by Yehudi Menuhin, which was chosen as the ‘finest ever version’ by BBC Music Magazine. Other highlights include his recordings of Shostakovich’s Cello Sonata with John McCabe and works by Fauré and Debussy with Yan Pascal Tortelier, arrangements of Vaughan Williams, John Ireland and Percy Grainger with Neville Marriner, Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations with Maxim Shostakovich (Tchaikovsky’s original version) and a special recording of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Pie Jesu. There’s also a beautiful miniature entitled Jackie’s Song, composed by Julian as a musical tribute to the cellist Jacqueline Du Pré, who was forced to retire in 1973 at the age of 28 due to multiple sclerosis.
With such an extensive backlist, was it difficult to choose the tracks?
“It was,” he says. “I’ve probably made over 20 CDs over the years, maybe even 30. So I had to really decide some way of doing it. Therefore I came up with this idea, that it might be nice to do each different CD as a different country’s music. So there’s a British CD, a French CD and a Russian CD, because I’ve recorded more of those nationalities than any other. Probably my best recordings are reflected within that, for example with the British one you’ve got the Elgar concerto with Menuhin; with the French there’s the Saint-Saëns Concerto; and the Russian one with Tchaikovsky.”
He has found performing concertos (compositions written for one or more soloists accompanied by an orchestra or other ensemble) most rewarding.
“There’s nothing like a concerto performance, with a huge symphony orchestra. If it’s going well and it’s coming together, it’s the most incredible thing in the world. It really is, playing with that number of people, and a conductor. Concertos are always held in larger halls for logistical reasons, and it’s a wonderful feeling. I’ve been very lucky to work with great orchestras from around the world, and it’s been an extraordinary sort of connection in many ways, not just with the audience, but with the musicians involved. Because often you go to a new orchestra, and you don’t know anybody at all there, sometimes not even the conductor, so it’s something that comes together very very quickly – or not.”
He thinks that many people do not realise how little time is available to produce many classical recordings.
“As a classical musician you sometimes have to put things together so quickly,” he says. “There’s a huge difference between pop and classical music. Often, a rock album could take weeks, but with classical, sometimes, in this country, you may only have an on-the-day rehearsal. You could be recording a concerto in two sessions, on the same day. So, that is five hours of actual time in which you rehearse and record, and this thing is there forever.
“I often feel people don’t often realise that. People think there’s loads and loads of takes. They will play a classical piece and think it’s taken ages to put together. And very often it’s been really quick. Because of that you have to be so well prepared to go into a recording, because if you’re not, you’re really going to get found out. There’s just not time to go over things.”
I ask him what has given him the most joy over the years, playing or listening to music?
“It’s got to be a combination of both, because if I hadn’t started to listen to music I wouldn’t have wanted to play it. I did love playing in public – that extraordinary connection with an audience. That really is a feeling you can’t really replace.”
Julian used to practice for four or five hours each day, but even that kind of dedication won’t ensure that a musician will stand out. What does make a classical musician stand out, why has he been so successful?
“It is that extra connection you have with an audience. I’ve been doing this programme for Classic FM called Rising Stars, which is five programmes featuring 30 young musicians aged under 30. For that I had to do a lot of research. It actually opened my eyes in some ways, because you’ve got all these brilliant players pouring out of conservatoires all over the world, winning these competitions everywhere.
“One thing that they have in common is a complete technical perfection. So, therefore, you have to look for something else, because they all play wonderfully. It comes down to communication, it comes down to a player’s ability to speak to you directly. I found that there were many of those as well, so it just shows you how competitive the whole music profession is.
“You asked that question about myself. I always loved music. I always gave it everything, and it really was my life, and is still my life. I think it’s something that never leaves you. And I think persistence is one quality that you have to have. I certainly think I had that, because I wanted to do it so much.”
Julian’s parents were musicians: his father, William, was an organist, composer and teacher, and his mother, Jean, was a violinist and piano teacher. Money was tight when they were growing up. However, famous musicians would drift in and out of the family’s orbit all the time, so he and his brother Andrew were completely immersed in music from a very young age.
After trying out various instruments, it was the cello that immediately grabbed Julian – which he started playing from the age of four. When aged 13 he decided to become a professional cellist, and won a full scholarship to the Royal College at 16.
“I feel the cello is the closest instrument to the human voice,” he says. “A lot of people say that. I think I could speak directly to people in a way you couldn’t always do with words. It is absolutely in the musical range of the human voice, and it can sing. That’s why for this collection we came up with the title ‘The Singing Strad’. Every single track I recorded on the same cello. I think that it is a cello that really sings, that’s why I wanted it so much.”
He bought the instrument, a Barjansky Stradivarius cello, at auction in 1983 for £192,500. He spent every penny he had, remortgaged his home and took out a bank loan to buy it. He found it annoying that some people assumed that his brother Andrew, the composer and impresario of musical theatre, had bought the instrument, considering the years of work he had put in to afford it. It was named after its former Russian owner Serge Alexandre Barjansky (1883-1946) used it to premiere the Delius Concerto in Frankfurt in 1923. He sold it for a handsome profit in 2016.
People may assume that he is only interested in classical music, yet his tastes are broad. He’s particularly a fan of Buddy Holly.
“Again, it’s all about communication. Buddy Holly was a great musician. He died at 22 leaving an extraordinary legacy of recordings. I was silly enough to obtain some outtakes of his, and the remarkable thing is that he never sings out of tune. You hear some of the last things he did, tracks like Raining in my heart and True love ways, and it’s extraordinary singing for someone of that age. He wrote a lot of his own material, which was unusual for the time. I think we lost a very big talent there.
“But I like that period, the rock ’n’ roll period of Elvis and all those, and the later slightly less fashionable period, of Roy Orbison, the Everly Brothers. Bobby Vee was always a hero of mine. They were all very young. Bobby Vee’s hits were when he was 16, 17, 18, and he had this incredible voice, and direct communication. He’s underrated.
“But I like all kinds of different music. I grew up in the Beatles era, I was into bands like Cream. I was lucky enough to see a lot of these acts. My ears are still ringing from hearing Cream at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London.”
Does he find there are lots of other artists that are underrated? For instance, Abba were for years dismissed as simple pop music but music experts have analysed the music and said it is as complex as Mozart.
“Well, these things go round and round, don’t they? All these people being compared to Mozart, I don’t think it’s very helpful.”
What advice would he give to someone wanting to follow in his footsteps?
“You have to love it, and you have to be aware it’s going to be your life. The word ‘soloist’ sounds very glamorous and attractive, but what you have to remember is it is coming from the word ‘solo’ and you will be alone a lot of the time. So, in a way you have to know what you’re getting into. And if you’re prepared to do that, it is a fantastic life. Also, I have always told my students, you have to keep on and on and on, and if the door is shut you have to find one and kick it open.”
In 2007, the Secretary of State for Education asked Julian to found the UK Government’s In Harmony programme and he chairs the charity Sistema England, both focused on making music more accessible to children from less privileged backgrounds. He has also been involved with organisations such as Clic Sargent and the Prince’s Trust for many years. He has also represented the music education sector on such programmes as BBC1’s Question Time, The Andrew Marr Show, BBC2’s Newsnight and BBC Radio 4’s Today, The World at One, PM, Front Row, and The World Tonight.
Julian’s fourth wife, Jiaxin Cheng, whom he married in 2009, is a cellist too, and they have performed and recorded together.
“We met in New Zealand,” he says. “She was playing in the orchestra. It was something that developed over about four or five visits by me to New Zealand over a number of years.”
Their daughter, Jasmine Orienta, born in 2011, takes her second name after Julian’s lifelong support for Leyton Orient Football Club. He also has a son, David, born in 1992. Have they shown interest in the musical life?
“Our daughter’s only nine, but like my son, who is a lot older, they are clever enough to work out that being a Lloyd Webber, and going into music, might not be the best thing. I can’t say with my daughter yet, she’s not old enough. My son is very musical and has real musical knowledge of loads of different styles, he even used to go to the opera sometimes by himself. He was really into his music, but I think he never wanted to do it as a profession.”
Over the years Julian has inspired more than fifty new works for cello, from composers as varied as Malcolm Arnold, Joaquín Rodrigo, James MacMillan and Philip Glass. Million-selling Variations (which was based upon Paganini’s original theme for violin) was written by his brother Andrew especially for Julian, and a clip was famous as the theme to ITV’s long running South Bank Show. Is he close to Andrew?
“We don’t see a huge amount of each other, but we get together at Christmas and other times. We used to go to the football a lot together. It’s one of those things now where we might see each other five times in two months, and then not for a year. It just depends on our movements.”
Does he think there’s a long way to go for classical music to be accessible to most people?
“I don’t really think that. I think that there’s a huge demand for classical music, and you can see that from the figures for Classic FM and Radio 3, it’a millions of people, it’s not really a minority.
“I think there will always be a place for classical music, but it’s how it develops, it will go in different ways, it won’t be stationary, no art form ever can be really. It has to keep evolving, and I’m sure there will always be a place for classical music.
“And I think that the term ‘classical music’ is really increasingly irrelevant, because we’re talking about, what, seven hundred years of music, in hugely different styles. The trouble is that no-one has ever come up with a different term, and I guess it really describes music with a certain kind of technique behind it. But as a style it’s meaningless: compare Vivaldi to Rachmaninov, and you’ve already lost that battle.”
How does he see the classical music world after Covid?
“It will take time to get back to what it was. Until you can get back to capacity with concert halls it’s going to be very difficult because the whole cost projections were usually on a full capacity audience, and certainly not less than 70 per cent, so if we’re going to have half the number in the audience it’s going to be difficult. But it will never go. It will always come back.”
The Singing Strad is out on Decca Classics; more information: julianlloydwebber.com
This article appeared in the Spring 2021 issue of Black + Green Magazine