Julian Lloyd Webber
The cellist on being held at gunpoint by security and seeking silk pyjamas in Hong Kong
YOU DON’T SEE PLACES PROPERLY ON TOUR but you get a strong impression. I travelled to a huge number of countries when I was playing. There are meals before and after concerts, and times when you can do a bit of sightseeing. I toured New Zealand five times. In the early days, they worked you really hard but I had one day off, so I got the train from Christchurch to the fishing village of Greymouth on the west coast. It was an extraordinary journey, just wild with forest and scrubland for hours. There’s basically nothing there.
I WAS VERY TAKEN WITH HANOI. I went to countries in the Far East where I’d never have gone had I not been working. Take Vietnam in 2009. I stayed at the Metropole, an old French building, and had the best hotel breakfast ever. It was an astonishing array of stuff, freshly cooked. I’d like to go back, but it is heavily polluted. As soon as you go out the door, you need something over your eyes.
I REMEMBER AN IMPORTANT CONCERT IN HONG KONG just before the changeover in rule [in 1997]. The first half was all British music, then the second half was all Chinese. The atmosphere as I closed the first half with Elgar’s Cello Concerto was extraordinary. On that visit, I took myself off to Stanley Market in search of silk pyjamas. It was about 45 minutes’ bus ride away and I sat on top as it wound around the cliffs. The market really was worth seeing, with incredible little stalls. I found a couple of pairs of pyjamas but you need to be careful to buy XXXL because they tend to make the sizes too small.
AN AIRPORT SECURITY GUY PULLED A GUN ON ME in New York in the early 1980s and wouldn’t let me take my Stradivarius on the plane. The
cello couldn’t go in the hold so I had a letter from Richard Branson to say I could take it on the plane. But the security guy wasn’t interested. Other people started pushing past so I ran off. The guy said, “Hold it!” as I got to the plane, where the airline staff were fine about it, but my
heart was pounding.
THE BATH WAS FULL OF A PREVIOUS OCCUPANT’S WATER when I stayed in Seoul the first time. Seoul is a city I like very much and a place I have returned to a lot but, the first time I played there, the
promoter was trying to cut corners so we were put in an awful bed-and-breakfast place.
I LIKE TO FIND THINGS YOU DON’T FIND AT HOME. In New York, I’d go down to Greenwich Village to explore all the second-hand LP shops and musty bookstores. That’s the sort of thing I like, rather than going up the Empire State Building. In the 1980s, you could get a load of cello LPs that never came out in the UK. I also recommend McSorley’s Old Ale House, a wonderful, unspoilt relic of the city, perfect for whiling away a few lazy hours.
I WAS IN SEVENTH HEAVEN WHEN I PLAYED AT ROSWELL in New Mexico, where an alien spacecraft is supposed to have landed. I’m into early rock ’n’ roll, so I drove round to out-of-town sheds where they were selling old junk – and records. I came back with a load of singles, people like Roy Orbison on the Sun label, real collectors’ items.
CORSICA IS RUGGEDLY BEAUTIFUL, unspoilt and well-kept. I’ve tried to go to places like that for holidays, where it’s unlikely I would ever play. I wander around and explore, find nice little restaurants and bars, and just relax. I like working places that aren’t overly touristy and Corsica seemed authentic, with lots of farming and food production. For our honeymoon in 2009, we stayed in Porto Vecchio in the south and Calvi in the north and drove across the middle, which was really wild. There was a forest fire and we got diverted off the main road. We were sent up a hill track, which was scary. It got inundated with traffic from both directions and we were inches away from a sheer drop.
LUNCH AT LOCANDA CIPRIANI ON TORCELLO ISLAND near Venice was unforgettable. I’m a bit of a gazpacho connoisseur and this was the best. I’m also a huge fan of Chinese food and in 2013 I was taken by locals in Beijing, not to a tourist traps but to Da Dong in a
busy shopping centre in Dongcheng district. The Peking duck was superb. That meal remains very special because it followed the last performance I gave of Elgar’s Cello Concerto before I was forced [by injury] to stop playing.
I ALWAYS LOOK FORWARD TO GOING TO STOCKHOLM, an underrated city. It’s like a northern Venice and the Grand Hotel has an incredible view of ferries coming and going to the islands. You can get lovely fish, the old city has historical buildings like the Royal Palace, it’s unspoilt and the air is fresh. It’s a lovely place for a summer holiday.
I’LL BE TRAVELLING TO CHINA NEXT to conduct some concerts, most likely in the autumn. It has already been postponed twice.
The Singing