 |
Subscribe to CMUK using RSS:  |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
The Q&A Interview:
CMUK: Welcome! Tell us: what projects are you working on at the moment? JLW: I am greatly involved with Elgar’s 150th birthday year. On the actual day (2nd June 2007) I will play the Cello Concerto twice! - in the afternoon at Worcester Cathedral and in the evening at the Royal Albert Hall. I am also working hard on a few specific composers - trying to bully them to write new cello pieces! CMUK: Who have been your greatest musical influences? Why? JLW: Rostropovich - because he played in a way I have never heard before or since. For him the cello is like a hero. I also admire the way he has encouraged so many composers to write for the cello. I think all musicians should play music of their time as well as from the past. In a different vein I have a huge admiration for Buddy Holly. He wrote most of his material, had a great voice and there is no knowing where he could have gone had he not died so ridiculously young, aged 22.
CMUK: And your greatest non-musical influences? JLW: My parents - although they were both musicians! My son - who is 15 and very articulate. My girlfriend – but she is also a musician! CMUK: You come from a musical family; your father, as well as your brother, was JLW: I do not remember a time without music. Music was either playing or being played all the time while I was growing up. It seemed entirely natural to play an instrument- although there had never been a string player in the family before. It is hard to know whether I would have taken up music if I had not come from this background. The only other place I could found music would have been at school which is one reason I am so concerned about music education. CMUK: Your teachers included Douglas Cameron (at the Royal College of Music), JLW: I always regard Douglas Cameron as my ‘cello daddy’. He was a marvellous teacher who encouraged each student’s individuality. Joan Dickson was very different - more concerned with technique and quite dictatorial about interpretation. Pierre Fournier was much more like Cameron in approach. We covered a lot of music in a very short time. He taught me a huge amount about tone production. CMUK: Would you say that there's a 'Julian Lloyd Webber sound'? How do you go JLW: Obviously every instrument has its own sound - but so does every player. In one lesson with Fournier he seized my not very good Paul Bailly cello and immediately sounded just like Fournier! We all make our individual sound. I do have a sound I want to make in my head and, having been fortunate enough to play the Barjansky Stradivarius for twenty-four years now, it is obviously closely linked to this beautiful instrument.
CMUK: You've built up a stunning discography. How did you become JLW: I became familiar the hard way! At first I knew nothing about different microphones and was reliant on the sound engineer’s opinion. But they do not necessarily know the best mics to use on a cello. I became very interested in trying out many different mics before I arrived at the two I now always try to use. As far as recording is concerned I have always imagined the microphone to be the audience. I try to touch people's hearts through that mic! It is a real test of an artist as to whether they can achieve this. To some this seems to come entirely naturally. I think of Heifetz or Rostropovich or - in rock music- Elvis Presley or Buddy Holly or in jazz, Ella Fitzgerald. CMUK: You recorded the Elgar concerto with Yehudi Menuhin in 1985. What was Menuhin like to work with, and what did you learn from him? JLW: I found Menuhin wonderful to work with. Not only was there his extraordinary connection with Elgar himself but, being a string player, he was very responsive to everything I did - rubato,etc. We played the concerto a lot together and each performance felt very spontaneous. These have been some of the most memorable concerts in my life. We actually discussed the concerto very little. I remember the slow movement on the recording was literally one take. You always aim for that – but it doesn’t happen very often!
CMUK: You've worked with some of the greatest conductors and artists of the past JLW: I remember, working with Menuhin, that before one performance in Sydney I knocked on his dressing room door as I wanted to ask a question about something in the Elgar. When I went to his room I was surprise to see him standing on his head. I thought perhaps I should wait until he had finished his yoga but he asked me to show him the place on the score so - prostrating myself on the floor - I held the score down to his face to receive the inverted conductor’s wisdom. Working with Solti was also interesting. I was pretty young then and he was nearly eighty but it was the first time he had conducted the Elgar. When I went to rehearse at his house he seemed entirely preoccupied with a breakdown to his central heating system. Like Menuhin, Solti was also prostrate on the floor! Then, there was the Russian conductor, Svetlanov, who drank every glass of wine which had been laid out for a sponsor’s reception just before we went on the platform to play the Dvorak Concerto. And they say it's rock musicians who are naughty! CMUK: Rodrigo's Cello Concerto and Malcolm Arnold's Cello Concerto were both JLW: Two reasons. Firstly I believe there are lots of good composers writing today. Secondly, I believe classical music must be a living, breathing art form to be healthy.
CMUK: If a composer could write you a cello concerto today, who would it be? JLW: There are several composers who I wish would write for cello. I am working very hard to persuade John Rutter to come up with something. But I also have one or two other perhaps more surprising ideas. CMUK: You've indicated in the past that your father, like many other composers, felt sidelined when extreme modernism arrived in the 1950s. What's your attitude to modernist compositions of that time, and what do you think your father would say about present-day composers and compositional styles if he was alive today? JLW: I have always believed that composers should be able to write whatever they like in whatever style they like. The trouble after the 2nd World War was that everything had to be new and the atmosphere for composers was very dictatorial. You had to write in one style otherwise you weren’t accepted. It is much more open-minded today and my father would have been very interested in some contemporary composers’ work. Although his own music was very romantic he had a wide knowledge of contemporary styles. I remember him saying that he could well understand why Schoenberg felt he needed to embrace the 12 tone scale. CMUK: Although your career and your brother's have focused on very different JLW: We have very similar ideas about performance but obviously we work in very different areas of music. I have always enjoyed working with him and, as I grew up listening to him compose, I feel I know what he wants. We have only played in public together once when he played at my 50th birthday concert at the Royal Albert Hall. We only rehearsed that morning but it felt it entirely natural. We only had to decide the keys and then we were off! CMUK: Can we expect any future brotherly collaborations? JLW: Nothing planned but you never know… CMUK: You are a strong voice in the quest to support classical music education JLW: I mentioned earlier that - had I not come from a musical background - I could have only discovered music at school. There is virtually no classical music on the kind of TV programmes that young people watch. If you learn the basics of classical music you can go anywhere. If you start from hip-hop or rap you can’t. It’s as simple as that. CMUK: As a musician and a cellist, what's your driving motivation? Where might
CMUK: What, do you think, is the future of Classical Music? JLW: There will always be people who love classical music. But – when there are so many claims on people’s attention – we must not take it for granted that there will always be concerts for people to go to. Music lovers, and musicians themselves, must stand up for the art that we cherish.
|
|||||||||||
INTERVIEW: Julian Lloyd Webber in conversation with Classical Music UK published April 2007 
JLW: My driving motivation has always been my love of the music itself. I have never thought in terms of ‘career’. I have tended to work project by project. As far as the future is concerned I would like to encourage certain composers to write for the cello. Also I am concerned at the sidelining of classical music- so I will probably become more involved with ‘fighting for the cause’!
|
© Court Lane Music 2007