Seven years me to retire,
IT’S SEVEN years this week since celebrated musician Julian Lloyd Webber announced his retirement as a solo cellist because of an injury that left him increasingly powerless to hold his bow.
He was forced to stop playing in 2014 because of a herniated disc in his neck, which reduced the power in his bowing arm.
But the pain of that decision still lingers on.
Julian, the younger brother of theatre impresario Andrew, admits that not being able to perform publicly has left a gaping hole in his life and whenever he attempts to play the cello now it is not long before he has to admit defeat.
“I don’t play now,” he confesses. “I have tried to pick up my wife’s cello but the strings feel like agony on my fingertips and it just shows how you build up a sort of immunity when you are playing. I can’t believe it’s been seven years since I’ve played professionally.”
Julian, who turned 70 this month, continues: “As I get
‘I realised I was kidding myself’
older, I often relive performances and I’ll wake up in the middle of the night thinking I’m still doing it.
“I miss walking on stage and that connection with an audience. It’s always different, no matter how many times you do it – each hall, each audience, the atmosphere is always different.
“That extraordinary connection with people is hard to describe. There’s really no other feeling like it.
“I would have gone on playing forever if this hadn’t happened.
“Luckily other doors do open, especially if you kick them hard.
“I would never have become principal of the Birmingham Conservatoire for five years (from 2015 to 2020) otherwise.”
As a solo cellist Julian performed with many of the world’s greatest orchestras and conductors. He has sold millions of records and his recording of Elgar’s Cello Concerto, conducted by Sir Yehudi Menuhin, has been reissued five times.
His brother Andrew’s 1978 classical and rock fusion album, Variations, which he wrote for Julian, has sold more than a million copies.
And his most recent compilation, a three-cd box set called
The Singing Strad, released to mark his milestone birthday, has been a real hit with fans.
It makes it even more poignant for Julian, who made the decision to quit while rehearsing for a concert with his wife Jiaxin Cheng in Bradford.
“I realised I was kidding myself. I just wasn’t giving it my best and I remember calling my agent in the interval. I told him, ‘I can’t do this anymore’,” he recalls. “After that I cancelled all my concerts and all of a sudden I wasn’t earning a penny.
“I did some conducting here and there but money was really tight and we had to cut back on everything.
“It was a scary time because we also had a three-year-old daughter, Jasmine. But fortunately a year later I got the job as principal of the Birmingham Conservatoire, as it was then.”
Julian, who had been playing cello since the age of four and won a full scholarship to the Royal College at the age of 16, reveals he has never regained movement in his arm.
“The herniated disc in my neck was pressing on a nerve.
“I wasn’t in pain but the effect was that, after playing for about 10 minutes, I would lose power in the bowing arm.
“I could hardly hold the bow and that was a horrible feeling.
“I had a cortisone injection right into my neck. I tried everything I could.
“But I had a second MRI scan
on my neck and they said it had got worse. In the end, I saw three specialists – one of them offered an operation while the other two refused to do it.
“They told me it was too dangerous and if it went wrong it could leave me in a wheelchair, so I wasn’t going to be doing that unless I absolutely had to.
“I kept hoping there would be some miracle cure but basically all the specialists kept saying the same thing.
“Recently I spoke to another specialist. They said the damage would never repair itself and an operation would only mean a small chance of my arm ever working properly again.”
To this day, Julian still has very limited movement and can only put his arm flat out for a few of minutes. “If I hadn’t been a cellist using a very specific part of my body, I probably would never have noticed there was anything wrong.
“But it does mean I can’t use my right arm flat out doing something for very long. I could probably play the cello at home for a matter of minutes, but never a concert.
“When you go out and play it’s a different experience. The cello is an instrument you need to work hard to project over a big orchestra – you’re basically flat out.”
At the peak of his success his strength in his right arm was so phenomenal he even beat a stranger in an arm-wrestling contest.
He recalls: “I did an armwrestling contest in a pub once with this guy who thought, ‘Here’s a wimpy musician – he can’t possibly compete with me’.
“He was a big, muscly guy but little did he know, that six or sometimes eight hours a day I was using my right arm. I actually had a massive right arm muscle.
“So, I beat this guy in front of his cheering friend. He was really cross because he couldn’t believe I’d be able to do that.”
Julian also admits he is vigilant about his health as he has a history of cancer in the family.
His brother Andrew was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2009, from which he recovered. But their mum Jean, a musician and teacher, had terminal breast cancer and died aged 72 in 1993.
“I do have to be careful.andrew had prostate cancer although he has had an operation and he’s fine now,” says Julian who has been a patron of Sergeant Cancer Care for decades.
“I haven’t had symptoms and you can’t worry about everything, otherwise you drive yourself mad.
“But cancer has been in our family and my mother died of breast cancer. Mum was 72 when she died and I am 70 now.
“I lost my father when he was 68. He had a massive blood clot in hospital after what was a routine operation. That was very sad and it was too young really. He went in 1982 so it’s been me and Andrew – just the two of us – for a long time really.”
Julian says his older brother was very brave to sign up to the Oxford Astrazeneca vaccine trial, but he too has followed suit in having both doses of the vaccine.
“I wasn’t asked to do it with Andrew and I’m not sure I would,” he says. “I think he was brave to do it. But that’s Andrew for you and he’s been fine with it.
“Obviously at the start, he didn’t know if he was going to have the placebo or the injection.
“He had the latter but he’s been absolutely fine. He jokes that he’s got plenty of antibodies now.
“I’ve had both Astrazeneca jabs like Andrew and it’s been fine. I didn’t even have a headache.
“I just felt tired and I certainly didn’t get a sore arm. Two days later I was absolutely fine.
“It does make me feel that I am able to move around more freely now and I feel more reassured by having had it. It’s really important everybody gets vaccinated.
“I don’t worry when I hear the press about the rare blood clots associated with Astrazeneca.
‘You can’t worry about everything’ ‘We really need to
open things up’
“When you think about the risk of the contraceptive pill, I find it extraordinary people wouldn’t consider having it. I think it’s a huge mistake.”
He says he cannot comprehend how air travel is operating when open air concerts and theatre performances are still not allowed.
“If long-distance flights are still happening – and I think you should have to prove that you have been vaccinated otherwise the risks are far too high – then I would have thought theatre performances and open-air concerts this summer would still have gone ahead.
“I know they are doing experiments with the FA Cup final but we need to get things opened up now for the sake of people’s mental health and to give the entertainment industry a boost.”
Julian is one of 15 music education specialists behind the government’s new Model Music Curriculum to introduce instruments and singing to primary schools.