Julian Lloyd Webber

Julian Lloyd Webber0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a download from the Desert Island Disc's archive. This edition may be slightly different from what was actually broadcast, but it is the only version we have. It comes from the British Library's radio collection.

Julian Lloyd Webber0:15

The recording didn't contain the guests' eight music choices, so we've rebuilt the original show by using discs from the B B C Gramophone library. For Wright's reasons we've had to shorten the music.

Julian Lloyd Webber0:26

Full details can be found on the Castaways page on the Desert Island Disc's website.

Julian Lloyd Webber0:31

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen eighty one.

Julian Lloyd Webber0:34

And the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:53

This week, our castaway is the cellist Julian Lloyd Webber. Julian, as well as making records, do listen to them a lot.

Presenter1:01

Not so much as I used to. Uh when I was a student I used to listen to records all the time, and now perhaps I don't listen to them so much, just principally because I'm, you know, working at music all the day. Could you endure loneliness?

Presenter1:13

Yes, I think so.

Presenter1:15

What would you be happiest to have got away from?

Presenter1:17

There are a lot of things that I'd be fairly happy to get away from. Travel, for one thing. Travel is is a part of musical life today, but for a cellist it's not something which is particularly enjoyable, as you can imagine travelling by airlines and and that sort of thing. Um there there are things about modern life that I would be very glad to escape from, like motorway service stations, pylon lines, and uh various similar kind of things. You have just eight discs to cheer you up. What's the first one?

Presenter1:48

Well the first one takes me right back a long way.

Presenter1:52

And this was the first pop record that made any kind of impression on me, and I still feel that it was the greatest pop record ever made, and it's Bobbie V singing Take Good Care of My Baby.

Speaker 22:03

Take good care of my baby.

Presenter2:03

Take good care of me.

Speaker 32:05

Ah

Speaker 22:09

Please don't ever make a blue

Speaker 22:14

Just tell her that you love her Make sure you're thinking of her In everything you say and do

Speaker 22:25

I take good care of

Speaker 32:27

Of my baby

Presenter2:31

Your first record, Bobby V.

Presenter2:34

Were you born in London? Yes, I've lived in London all my life. And born into a very musical family. Yes. Now your father, of course, organist, composer, and teacher.

Presenter2:45

Yes, that's right. Music was something that was uh always in the background. I was never pressured in any sense to take up music, but it was something that was there. It was a kind of continual background and I picked up from that. Now your mother a a musician as well? Yes, she teaches piano to young children. She's very specialist at that.

Julian Lloyd Webber3:04

Cheese.

Presenter3:06

And your brother Andrew, he's older than you. Yes.

Julian Lloyd Webber3:09

Yeah.

Presenter3:10

With four of you at it, there was noisy. It was indeed there must have been enormous competition for the piano, unless there were four pianos.

Julian Lloyd Webber3:11

It is noisy.

Presenter3:18

Well, not really for the piano. Uh my my father had a special piano which he adapted into an organ in the sense that it had pedals at it. Um you know, th there was an awful lot of noise. At one stage I even played the trumpet, which had to be fairly quickly abandoned because in fact we used to live in a flat. Yes, I appreciate that.

Presenter3:35

You and Andrew had a toy theatre. This was very important in your lives. In Andrew's life especially, I used to help him operate that theatre, and he used to write musicals around the theatre. Yes. It's something that I look back to with great affection. When did you become interested in the cello, and why the cello? Well, I started, like a lot of children with musical families, on the piano, and I was quite hopeless at playing the piano. In fact, appalling. I could never get both hands to work at the same time. And I thought to myself, well, if I took up a different instrument, perhaps I could get out of practising the piano. And I chose the cello, basically because I loved the look of the instrument. I think it's a a wonderful instrument to watch. You can see exactly what a performer is doing on it. When did you first watch one? When I was about six, I was taken to one of the Ernest Reed children's concerts, the Festival Hall. And I I suppose I fell in love with the sight and sound of the cello, and that was the instrument I wanted to play. And I asked for one of those. I had a little eighth size. Eighth size. It was tiny, it was not much bigger than the violin.

Julian Lloyd Webber4:18

Yeah.

Julian Lloyd Webber4:26

Professor.

Julian Lloyd Webber4:37

An eighth side.

Presenter4:41

Yes. And, um, I took to that just in a way that I never had with the piano.

Julian Lloyd Webber4:41

Yeah.

Presenter4:46

How old were you when you possessed for the first time your eighth size cello? I would say I was about six.

Presenter4:54

Let's have your second record.

Presenter4:56

Well, the second record I've really chosen because I think it's one of the most marvellous examples of cello playing that I know. It's Rostropovich playing a work that was written for him, which I love very much and I wish was played a great deal more, the first cello concerto by Shostakovich.

Presenter6:09

The opening of the first Shostakovich cello concerto.

Presenter6:13

Rostra Pervich.

Presenter6:15

Now you had your little cello. I suppose it was traded in every few years for a bigger one. Yes, I'm afraid it was. I think the eight-size cellos, the really small ones, are very hard to come by nowadays. And I wish I'd kept that. Now you and Andrew went off in different directions musically. He was very interested in pop music. Now you've played as one pop disc. Were you both wrapped up in it? No. I would say that I was most interested in playing the cello. I was very aware that Andrew was interested in a different kind of field. He used to bring back pop records and as I said that was the first pop record that really made much impression on me. And still, you know, that's the sort of period of pop music that I like.

Presenter7:00

I'm afraid that the answer's no.

Presenter7:02

Where were you at school? I first of all went to Westminster Under School, uh junior part of Westminster Public School. Then I went to University College School in Hampstead, which strangely enough has been quite a breeding ground for musicians. Who, for example? Douglas Cummings, who was principal cello of the London Symphony Orchestra, and Keith Cummings, his father, who was a viola player. And um although there's not much musical tuition in that school, the freedom that I was allowed to have at the time, in the sense that they did allow me to do some practice at the same time as being part of the usual school system, did allow me to develop as a cellist. When did you decide that you wanted to be a professional musician?

Speaker 37:06

Mm

Speaker 37:11

Mm-hmm.

Julian Lloyd Webber7:11

Uh

Julian Lloyd Webber7:32

Mm.

Presenter7:42

When I was about fourteen, I really had no desire until that age to be a professional musician at all. I think that possibly was a reaction against all the music in the family. But about that time, I had a wonderful teacher called Douglas Cameron, who taught many British cellists. And I became aware of Rostropovich when he gave a marathon cycle of concertos in London, of all the cello repertoire. And all these things combined convinced me really very suddenly that there was nothing else I wanted to do. So you had to start studying seriously all of a sudden. Well, I certainly did, because up to that point, you know, when I was about thirteen or fourteen, the whole thing had been a bit of a joke to me. It was something that I was very interested in the cello, and I remember recording all sorts of obscure foreign radio stations with strange cello concertos. But I never really thought it was something I would do for myself. And when I got to fourteen, I had a lot of catching up to do. And I realised that if I wanted to be a solo cellist, and that was really all I wanted to do, I never wanted to play in an orchestra. I realised I had a lot of practice to do. Where did you go?

Julian Lloyd Webber8:14

Yeah.

Speaker 38:14

Well, I certainly did.

Julian Lloyd Webber8:38

And I

Presenter8:47

I went to the Royal College of Music.

Presenter8:50

And who did you study with that?

Presenter8:54

You had a short period with Pierre Fournier. Yes, I did, in Geneva. Pierre Fournier was a wonderful teacher. He was someone that was not particularly dogmatic in that he didn't tell you how pieces should be played. What I found perhaps most rewarding of all with him was that I was sitting in the same room with him and he would be playing right next to me, demonstrating to me how he thought things should go, and I was able to watch him at very close proximity. And I think I learnt a a great deal just from that.

Presenter9:27

What's your third record?

Presenter9:28

The third record is the Mozart string quintet in G minor, which I think is a marvellous piece of music, and is played here by the Griller string quartet. The reason that I chose this is because at a certain point when I was about eighteen, Sidney Griller himself was a great influence on me.

Presenter10:44

The third movement of the Mozart Viola Quintet in G minor, the Grilla Quartet plus William Primrose. Now I know you had done well at the Royal College, you won prizes, but you had a bit of luck just before you left.

Presenter11:00

Yes, I did. I think this is one thing which perhaps should be said in favour of music colleges. Perhaps there's a trend nowadays for young people who want to be solo artists to leave British colleges and study abroad. But I think that the the truth of the matter is that when you're at music college you're given a platform to play at very important concerts. And the final concert I gave at the Royal College was of the Prokofiev enormous symphony concerto for cello and orchestra, which was a concert in aid of the President, Sir Arthur Bliss. And he was at the concert and he sent me his own cello concerto after the performance. And I went and later played this to him. And then he suggested that I should give what turned out to be the first London performance of his own concerto at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. And that was my first break really into the concert world.

Speaker 311:27

Mm-hmm.

Julian Lloyd Webber11:47

Okay.

Presenter11:53

Now you began to do very well. You made your first disc, I think, within a year. Yes, that's right. It said that by the age of twenty five you had played with every professional orchestra in the country and all the major concert halls.

Presenter12:06

Yes, I I think that's true. Um obviously the record would have helped in the first place. What was your first overseas engagement?

Presenter12:14

Um the first trip I made abroad, uh I think it was a European trip. I think the f I in fact I remember the first thing I did abroad was a television concerto of the Haydn D major in Holland. And I remember there was an appalling incident on that occasion. Well, I went through the concerto and I thought it was fine. I thought everything had really gone well and it's one of the hardest in the repertoire and I really came off feeling quite pleased. So I went up and I had a few glasses of lager in the interval. And suddenly, after I'd been assured everything was all right, one of the producers came up and said, I'm afraid there was something wrong with the pictures. You're going to have to retake the last movement, which is the hardest of all.

Julian Lloyd Webber12:31

But

Presenter12:58

And so I said, Well, look, I can't. I mean, I've had a few drinks and I just can't play Haydn after that And he said, Well, I'm sorry, but you got it and so this little argument ensued, but the final result was that I had to retake it and hopefully it was all right.

Julian Lloyd Webber13:03

And he said, What I'm

Presenter13:11

Oh, hopefully it was. How many areas have you opened up now? You've opened up most of Europe.

Presenter13:16

Yes, I played in Germany and Holland and Spain, and in America and Africa.

Presenter13:22

I suppose I've I've played quite a lot of role. Yes, well that really only leaves the Far East, doesn't it? In Australia.

Presenter13:30

Record number four. This is Eric Femby's own arrangement of La Calinda by Delius. You've always been very fond of Delius, haven't you? Yes, I have. Eric Femby, of course, at the end of Delius' life, took down the composer's music because he was blind. And I very recently had the honour of recording his cello sonata with Eric Femby, which I found an incredible experience. And this particular piece, La Calinda, is one of my favourites.

Julian Lloyd Webber13:36

The walls be

Julian Lloyd Webber13:37

Hmm.

Presenter14:59

The opening of La Calinda from the Delius Opera Coanga, the Halley Orchestra conducted by Sir John Barbie Raleigh.

Presenter15:07

Julian, how does it work in the concert business? If you're engaged to play with an orchestra, can you choose your own programme, or do you have to play more or less what the orchestra wants to play or what they think will sell ticket? The point is really that if you're doing a recital with piano, you can choose your own programme entirely.

Julian Lloyd Webber15:24

Trolley

Presenter15:25

But if you're playing with orchestra, they normally choose the concerto. They ask you for a specific work. Um and I think one of the problems with cellists is that there are very few concertos that orchestras ask for. It's a kind of vicious circle. I feel there's an immense cello repertoire, works like the Shostakovich, which are really not played. And the problem is because they're not played, then audiences don't come to hear them.

Julian Lloyd Webber15:31

Hmm.

Presenter15:48

Among the old familiars, which major works are closest to your heart?

Presenter15:53

Well, funnily enough, I I wouldn't really particularly like to single out one of them, because they're all very close to my heart. I feel that many composers wrote their very best works for the cello, so you've got a work like the Schumann concerto, which I feel is one of his best, the Saint-Sans, the Dvorak, the Elgar, and I love them all. And which one do you like to play when you get the chance?

Presenter16:16

Well, uh, if you put me on the spot, the Elgar. What about Bach? The Bach Six solo cello suites I think are the very peak of the repertoire, even though they were about the first pieces to be written for the instrument, they still stand apart from everything else, and I feel that people generally tend to tackle them too young, and it's something I'm certainly prepared to leave till I feel I'm completely ready for them.

Julian Lloyd Webber16:33

Okay.

Presenter16:38

Now coming up to date, you've recently commissioned a work from a very distinguished and popular composer. Yes, um this is a Spanish composer Rodrigo, who of course wrote a very popular guitar concerto. Indeed. And I feel that

Julian Lloyd Webber16:50

Yeah.

Presenter16:52

But cello badly needs a concerto, which is taken up by cellists everywhere, and I feel that Rodrigo can produce a work of that kind. Yes, he's he's nearly eighty, and of course he's blind. Is he? I don't know. And um I was delighted when he said he'd do it because I w really wasn't sure that he would. Have you been out to see him? Yes, I have. And in fact I've now had the concerto and I'm very pleased with it. It's very difficult, but I'm very pleased with that. When are we going to hear it for the first time? In April next year. Where? At the festival hall.

Speaker 317:00

And in fact,

Julian Lloyd Webber17:01

An old gentleman knows.

Julian Lloyd Webber17:05

Yeah.

Speaker 317:05

Uh

Julian Lloyd Webber17:06

Yeah.

Presenter17:24

Have you composed yourself? Yes, I have, but so far the results have been kept in the closet where they possibly belong, I don't know. You collaborated, of course, with Andrew on a film score. The Odecophile, yes. He wrote quite a difficult cello part to the Odecophile and and I played that.

Julian Lloyd Webber17:36

Yeah.

Presenter17:41

And of course you had a big popular success with a record you made of one of his compositions.

Presenter17:48

Yes, that was the uh variations on the Paganini theme. You must be one of the very few classical musicians to earn a gold disc. Yes, it's hanging very proudly in my um lavatory.

Presenter18:00

Let's move smartly on to record number five. Funnily enough, I think the conductors that have always made the most impression on me have been Toscanini and Furtwangler, although they're poles apart. Furtwangler was a very slow and perhaps wayward conductor, whereas Toscanini tended to be very strict. But I think the thing which I really love about both of them is they put their ideas over with tremendous clarity.

Presenter19:29

The opening of the eighth Beethoven Symphony in F major, Toscanini conducting the N B C Symphony Orchestra.

Presenter19:36

Julian, how many cellos do you possess?

Presenter19:39

I o only have the one cello. Only one? Yes. You don't have a sort of practice one and a

Presenter19:46

No, I feel really you can only give your best if you're working all the time on one cello and trying to get the most out of that particular instrument.

Presenter19:54

Tell me about the instrument. It's a seventeen ninety-one Guadanini, which I was, I think, really very lucky to find. I'd searched for a long time, and I've only had it about a year now, and I'm very very pleased with it. Now, obviously, you can't let that out of your sight. How do you protect it? You you can't let it go into the baggage compartment on a on a plane. Oh dear, well the less said about that the better. No, I won't let it go into the hold, but unfortunately airlines insist that if you want to take the cello into the cabin you have to play a full passenger fare for the cello. On all airlines? On every airline except British Midlands.

Julian Lloyd Webber20:27

For the t

Presenter20:32

But unfortunately they only fly from Coventry to Jersey, I think. But uh but apart from that, they insist you pay a full passenger fare and um

Julian Lloyd Webber20:32

But I've

Julian Lloyd Webber20:36

But uh

Speaker 320:39

If I

Julian Lloyd Webber20:40

Yeah.

Presenter20:44

I won't do that, which causes an awful lot of arguments. Because if the plane is empty, I don't really see why especially when the ally won't accept responsibility for damaging the instrument that it shouldn't come in.

Julian Lloyd Webber20:48

Because

Julian Lloyd Webber20:54

Let's see if it's a problem.

Presenter20:57

There we are. Did you win your battle? Yes. Well done.

Presenter21:02

Now is that instrument, this seventeen ninety-one instrument,

Presenter21:06

The one that you are happy to use for the rest of your career, or are you looking the whole time for one with an even better tone somewhere? Well, there was a time when I used to think that uh the player was sort of ninety-five percent responsible for the sound that came out of the instrument. But in recent times, you know, the last year or so, when I've got my new cello, I feel that the instrument is so important, you know, and it makes such a difference that uh I'm very much on the lookout to try different cellos because I think there is a limit to what you can get out of an instrument. So therefore if something comes along which is better, then I'll certainly be wanting to try it. Is this a great sort of cooperative parlor game among cellists that you you play each other's instruments and discuss them and?

Julian Lloyd Webber21:41

So

Presenter21:53

No, I don't think it is. I mean, I think cellists who are sure that they've got the instrument they want for life are very careful to make sure that nobody else plays it. But uh I think that the very best cellos are very keenly sought after. People know where they are, people know who've got them.

Speaker 322:01

Okay.

Presenter22:11

Let's have your sixth record. The sixth record is by Stefan Grapelli, a wonderful jazz violinist and I recently played with him myself. And I think it's very important that musicians of all different types are aware of what goes on in different musical fields. And I think Grapelli is a genius. What would you like to hear him play? He's nocturne. Oh, yes. This is one he made with Django Reinhardt. Yes.

Presenter25:05

Nocturne by Reinhardt and Grapelli, played back in the old days of the quintet of the Hot Club of France. What are your interests outside music, Julian?

Presenter25:15

I'm very fond of various things. I'm I'm very interested in football and I support Orient Football Club in the second division. Well, the story really is that my mother was a great friend of John Lille's parents, the pianist. And he came from Leighton, a few yards away from Orient football ground. And my mother used to go over there on Saturday afternoons and I used to go over with her. And rather than sit around talking with the family, I used to go and watch the the football team. How are they doing?

Julian Lloyd Webber25:20

I love support.

Julian Lloyd Webber25:22

In the second division.

Speaker 325:30

Yeah.

Julian Lloyd Webber25:30

Yeah.

Presenter25:46

That's what as can be expected. Is your wife a musician? No, she's very musical, but she doesn't actually play an instrument herself.

Presenter25:56

So the house is fairly quiet? The house is pretty quiet, but uh we we do in fact live in a flat, which can produce the old problem.

Presenter26:04

The next record is the Elgar Cello Concerto played by Beatrice Harrison uh a long time ago with Elgar himself conducting. Although the style of playing, the style of cello playing has probably changed since that time, I feel it's deeply moving and I feel that Beatrice Harrison's interpretation is the only one that has really followed Elgar's markings and I think that's very important for the success of the concerto.

Presenter27:32

An excerpt from the Elgar cello concerto with the composer conducting the new symphony orchestra with Beatrice Harrison. That, of course, as far as you're concerned, is an old war horse that you played very frequently. Yes, I think of all the um cello concertos it's the one that I've played most frequently of all. A particular time that I played it which um really meant a lot to me was what turned out in fact to be Sir George Shulty's very first time he'd ever performed it, even though he's a committed Elgarian. And um that was a certainly a wonderful occasion. Where was that? That was at the festival hall.

Julian Lloyd Webber27:50

Mm.

Speaker 328:02

Yeah.

Julian Lloyd Webber28:02

Pandem.

Julian Lloyd Webber28:06

Where was it?

Presenter28:08

Were you ever a Boy Scout?

Presenter28:11

No. Now we're getting on to the question of the of the desert island and how you're doing. Could you look after yourself?

Julian Lloyd Webber28:15

Oh I see, I have underpop.

Presenter28:19

Yes, I think eventually that I could. Are you fairly good with your hands? Apart from the fact that you sometimes have a cello in them and you're amazingly good with your hands. But could you put up a shelter?

Presenter28:32

Yes, I think so. And you could find something to eat? Oh, yes. Cooking?

Presenter28:37

Cooking, yes, but only with the modern utensils, I'm afraid. Is good living important to you?

Presenter28:44

In a sense that uh it can be a relaxation from the pressures of concert giving, yes. But basically no. I think that I could live without it. Would you try to escape?

Presenter28:55

Possibly not.

Presenter28:56

You have no skills at navigation, small boats, sailing. No, no skills at any of those.

Presenter29:05

Right. And we've come to your last record. The last record is one of my own. It's the most recent that's been released. And it's because I was particularly honoured to be given the first recording of a work by Benjamin Britton, which was specifically written for a cellist who I admire perhaps above any other, Rostropovich. And this is from the third suite for cello by Brittain.

Presenter30:22

Your own recording of the moto perpetuo from Britain's third suite for cello. If you could take only one disc out of the eight you've chosen, which would it be?

Presenter30:32

Well, it was uh very difficult to choose just one, but it would be the Elgar Concerto.

Presenter30:38

and one luxury to take to the island.

Presenter30:41

But I thought of um taking a beer-making kit.

Presenter30:44

But um in the end I decided to take my shadow.

Presenter30:48

Well, I could always turn it into a raft. Oh, no, no. Seventeen ninety one, you're going to turn it into a raft.

Presenter30:56

And one book apart from the Bible and Shakespeare, which are already planted there? This was exceptionally difficult. Um I came down in the end to two choices. One was The Hill of Dreams, which is a novel by the Welsh writer Arthur Macken. And in this uh the hero rather creates his own desert island, and I thought that was uh a bit too close for comfort. The other choice was a history of Orient Football Club, and in the end my choice fell on the history of Orient Football Club.

Julian Lloyd Webber31:22

And in the end

Presenter31:27

The history of Orient Football Club will have it specially bound in gold.

Presenter31:32

As it should be.

Presenter31:34

And thank you, Julian Lloyd Webber, for letting us hear your Desert Island Discs. Thank you. Goodbye, everyone.

Julian Lloyd Webber31:49

You've been listening to a download from the Desert Islandists Archive.

Julian Lloyd Webber31:53

For more downloads, please visit the Radio 4 website.