The Big Interview: Julian Lloyd Webber

Julian Lloyd Webber is one of the world’s most celebrated cellists. He talks to Chris Bond about his life in music ahead of his return to Yorkshire.
Julian Lloyd Webber, and below with his wife Jiaxin ChengJulian Lloyd Webber, and below with his wife Jiaxin Cheng
Julian Lloyd Webber, and below with his wife Jiaxin Cheng

When Julian Lloyd Webber performs at The Old Swan in Harrogate next month he will be returning to a town that holds a special place in his affections.

“It’s one of the very first places where I performed in public,” he says. “I first played the Royal Hall in December 1970 when I was 19, at a Beethoven bicentenary concert, and I’ve not looked back since.”

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The North Yorkshire town has continued to pop up at key moments in his career. He returned the following year when, still relatively unknown, he starred in Harrogate International Festival’s Young Musician series. It was here, too, that he recorded Elgar’s Cello Concerto with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Lord Yehudi Menuhin, regarded by BBC Music Magazine as the finest ever version.

“It’s a significant place in my career and I’ve got a very good history with Harrogate,” he says.

It’s one that continues to evolve and next month he’s back in the spa town when he opens Harrogate International Festival’s 21st Spring Sunday Series. The series of concerts, run by Harrogate International Festivals, will be performed at the Old Swan Hotel from January to April and include some of the brightest musical talent from around the world.

It marks a quick return to Yorkshire for Lloyd Webber, who headlined Bradford’s Festival of Music last summer when he and his wife, fellow cellist Jiaxin Cheng, performed works by the likes of Schumann, Rachmaninov, Purcell and Shostakovich.

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He’ll be on stage with his wife once again when they perform Tale of Two Cellos, on January 26, featuring the music of Bach and Vivaldi through to that of his brother Andrew.

Many people would baulk at the idea of working with their partner, never 
mind performing on stage in the full glare of an expectant, albeit appreciative, audience.

“It’s a completely new venture for me and for her but it’s good fun and we’re enjoying it and hopefully the audiences are too,” he says.

“It is different but I find making a recording in the studio is the hard part because you have to master the performance and we’re both perfectionists.”

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The renowned cellist comes from one of the world’s most famous musical families. His father, William Lloyd Webber, was a composer and organist and his mother Jean was a music teacher, not forgetting his brother.

Given their status in the music world surely there was a bit of sibling rivalry between the two of them when they were growing up? “Not really. We did share music interests but I was busy playing the cello and he was writing musicals. They’re very different so we didn’t really play music together.”

Nevertheless, they grew up in a house filled with music. “We had a musical background and we were lucky to have that. My father had a very wide taste in music and I remember hearing all kinds of different things, everything from Shostakovich to the early rock ’n’ roll of people like Buddy Holly.

“There was an LP called The Love for Three Oranges by Prokofiev that me and Andrew loved and we would play that all the time.”

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From an early age Lloyd Webber was certain he would be a musician, it was just a question of which instrument he would plump for. “I asked to play the cello and I just happened to get on with it from the beginning.

“The first time I saw a cello in an orchestra I was immediately drawn to it. I liked the way it looked and sounded. For me, it’s the closest instrument to the human voice,” he says. “I read a comment from Issac Stern once where he said the violin was the closest sound to the human voice, but I can’t say I agree.”

If seeing the cello made the young Lloyd Webber want to master the instrument, it was hearing the great Rostropovich play that inspired him to make a career out of it.

He had heard other cellists before but none had the same kind of effect. “I first heard Rostropovich when I was 13 and that made a huge impact on me,” he says. “I wanted to stop doing my homework and just practise the cello as often as I could.”

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To get to the top in any profession, whether it’s art, sport, or music, requires painstaking practice and as a teenager Lloyd Webber was single-minded in his determination to be the very best he could – even if it meant his school work suffered as a result. “I practised very hard but it became difficult to combine the two.”

He found school a hindrance rather than a help. “They say your school days are the happiest of your life but they weren’t for me. I felt straitjacketed. I wanted to be a soloist and I wanted to get on with it.”

He left school and spent the best part of a year practising six-and-a-half hours every day, before winning a scholarship to the Royal College of Music. “I hadn’t been to a specialist music school so I felt I had some catching up to do technically.”

It’s hard not to be impressed by his level of dedication, although he sees it slightly differently. “I wanted to be a soloist but I didn’t have an alternative,” he says.

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After an impressive start his career really took off when he gave the first London performance of the cello concerto by Sir Arthur Bliss, at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in 1972.

That was his “big break” and provided the springboard to a music career that has seen him collaborate with such musical luminaries as Sir Georg Solti, Yehudi Menuhin, Stéphane Grappelli and Sir Elton John. He’s also inspired new compositions from such diverse composers as Malcolm Arnold and Philip Glass.

But Lloyd Webber says remaining at the top requires the same tireless dedication that got you there in the first place.

“It’s not an easy profession in which to get firmly established, it takes time and hard work. A lot of people want to do it and as a soloist you’re only as good as your last performance – one bad performance and word quickly gets around.”

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As well as dedication, it takes a certain kind of person to be able to handle the pressure. “It’s a very solitary existence, when you’re travelling it’s solitary and it’s the same when you get up on to the platform.”

The rewards of a career in classical music can be enormous but he is concerned about the direction the industry is moving in at the moment.“In this country we suffer from a lack of media coverage, particularly on TV, and there’s a lack of mainstream classical programmes that we used to have.”

This has made it harder for musicians to make a decent living. “When I started off in the 70s and 80s there were all kinds of programmes. The final of Young Musician of the Year was shown on BBC One at a prime time slot, like X Factor today, but that’s all gone and it’s become difficult for classical music.” He doesn’t believe that TV producers are simply reflecting modern tastes. “The music is as relevant as it’s ever been, it’s to do with music education and giving classical music more exposure.

“I’ve not found audiences to be declining at all and in some places, like Harrogate, it gets very well supported. It’s just a shame more people don’t know about it.”

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It’s an interesting point and one highlighted by the fact that Lloyd Webber, accompanied by the London Symphony Orchestra, was one of the few classical musicians who performed at the closing ceremony for the London 2012 Olympics.

“It was good to be there and it’s an experience I will never forget, but as soon as we started playing somebody began talking over the top of us with lines from a speech by Churchill. I thought ‘why are they so scared of letting classical music speak for itself?’

“It’s a big under-estimation of what audiences like, and what people like.”

Despite such frustrations his passion for classical music remains undimmed after more than 40 years in the business. “It’s all about the moment and communicating with different audiences. If you love the music you want to bring that to people – so the day I stop performing will be a sad one for me because I really do enjoy it.”

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Julian Lloyd Webber opens the Harrogate International Festival’s Spring Sunday Series on January 26, at The Old Swan Hotel. The Series, which runs to April, features four more internationally- renowned names, pianist Christian Zacharias, The Navarra String Quartet , violinist Dmitry Sitkovetsky and 
pianist Young-Choon Park.

Tickets cost £15.50 and £17. 
For information call 01423 562 303, or visit www.harrogateinternationalfestivals.com.

There is a 10 per cent 
discount when booking for all five concerts.

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