Some Enchanted Evening and Prokfiev's 7th piano sonata - the inheritance tracks of Andrew Llloyd Webber

It was fascinating hearing Andrew Lloyd Webber delivering his ‘inheritance tracks’ on BBC Radio 4’s Saturday Live at the weekend.
The impresario and composer whose long running shows have changed the history of musical theatre chose Richard Rogers’ Some Enchanted Evening from the film South Pacific and Prokofiev’s 7th Piano Sonata.
He believes the former, which was sung by Giorgio Tozzi and lip-synced on screen by heart-throb Rossano Brazzi, is one the greatest romantic songs in a musical ever.
Quite a claim but if anyone knows, I guess the prodigiously talented Lord Lloyd Webber is pretty well placed to deliver that judgement.
Prokofiev’s 7th Piano Sonato meanwhile was chosen for its unconventional and complex structure. Lloyd Webber said he could have chosen a song by The Rolling Stones or The Beatles but the Prokofiev sonata, written in 1943, had the spirit of rock ’n’ roll.
He first heard the fiendishly difficult piece when then teenage piano prodigy John Lill was practising it at the Lloyd Webber’s home. For a time Lill lived at the family’s rambling flat in South Kensington alongside Andrew and his brother, the cellist and sometime Clive Conway Productions contributor Julian.
Their parents were, William Lloyd Webber, a professor of composition at the Royal College of Music and his piano teacher wife Jean. It seems it wasn’t a particularly happy home and Andrew admits he couldn’t wait to leave. It was however a breeding ground for musical creativity and, with West End theatreland just a few tube stops away, the young Andrew soon knew exactly what he wanted to do.
*Andrew Lloyd Webber’s inheritance tracks are among many available for download on the BBC website.