Andrew Lloyd Webber Remembers Meeting Queen Elizabeth

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, HOST: So, you actually performed and we saw it on the big screens outside of Buckingham Palace during the platinum jubilee a few months ago, of course. You and your old partner, Tim Rice, wrote a mini-musical cricket for the queen for her diamond jubilee.

ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER, COMPOSER: Yes, yes.

AMANPOUR: She really did like musical theater. I mean, I’ve heard some museum directors and others say she wasn’t necessarily, you know, a great cultural lover but she did her duty. She went to all of these openings of the opera and was patron of everything. But everybody says musicals and musical theater was her favorite.

WEBBER: Well, she had a great love of songs, obviously, from when — like, we all do when we’re teenagers. She had a great love of the musical theater songs that were around that time. I had the great joy and privilege of being able to premiere a song that I wrote for the previous jubilee called, “Sing”, at my home. And she came around, of course her great love is horse racing. And we put together a choir of horse racing people. And I have to say that it was not the best choir that I’ve ever, ever had in my life, but we did sing the song there. And we also sang some of the songs that we knew she loved when she was a kid. And they happen to be, I am happy to say, mainly from American musicals. And she is particularly in love with people we’re in love from Oklahoma.

AMANPOUR: Amazing. And you said — and I’m going to just read out what you said about her being an anchor. You said, for the whole of my life, the queen has been the constant anchor of not just Britain and her beloved Commonwealth, but an inspiration to the world for her lifetime of service. And I do think, especially in this, you know, very narcissistic world that we live in, that word service and her lifelong sense of it has impressed people above everything else.

WEBBER: Well, I think that’s right. I mean, she would never comment on anything that was negative about her or indeed — more importantly, I suppose, anything that was positive about her. She was just the most extraordinary woman. She had a real sense of humor. I can vouch for that. And I — all I can say is — and I’m a very, very, privileged person indeed to have been able to meet her on a few occasions.