Lynn Harrell, with the NZSO

By WILLIAM DART

American cellist Lynn Harrell - the star turn of the NZSO's 2001 season - laughs when I tell him jaws dropped when he followed his Concerto performance by taking his place as a rank-and-file cellist for the Brahms Second Symphony.

His simple explanation is he enjoyed it. "There are certain aspects of playing that we string players call orchestral style that I'm not able to do as a soloist. When you're part of a large group you have to give more profile to articulation and make more dynamic contrast between the soft and loud, things you can't do as a soloist."

Harrell enjoys his art so much he is giving us four concertos. "Usually, as a soloist, you visit and play one piece and then, if they want you to come back, because of the schedule of the orchestra, it's not going to be for years.

"I said to [NZSO music director] James Judd, why wait around to do four pieces in eight years? Why can't we do four in one year? It may sound egomaniacal because it features me, but I love playing with this orchestra."

Among the favourites he is bringing is Max Bruch's Kol nidrei, which he plays in Hamilton and in Auckland's Friday concert, a work he associates with his first cello teacher.

"Lev Aronson was a Holocaust survivor, a Jew who lived in Berlin in the 1930s, spent five years in a concentration camp and ended up in Texas. He was a great teacher and I don't think I would have become a cellist if it were not for him."

Aronson introduced Harrell to the Bruch, a score with strong Jewish associations. "When Bruch was music director of the Liverpool Philharmonic the Jews really supported him. They thought he was wonderful.

"As a homage to the Jewish community, he wrote this piece based on the ancient melody of Kol nidrei which is thousands of years old.

"In those days it was common to have pieces of five, seven or 10 minutes so they fitted them into the repertoire. Now they are harder to programme. It perhaps gets more performances than any other cello work."

Also on the programme is an Elgar Concerto which has special associations with the English cellist Jacqueline Du Pre.

"I was principal cellist with the Cleveland Orchestra when Jackie played the Elgar on her first American tour. I didn't know it. Along with many young cellists, I had studied with Leonard Rose, who was a pupil of Felix Salmond, the man who gave the concerto its world premiere.

"But, as Salmond didn't have a success with the piece, he didn't teach it. It was Jackie who made it part of the standard repertoire.

"Jackie had an unconscious feeling for maturity of expression that was far beyond her years," Harrell says. "And the fact the Elgar concerto is about a generation of lost youth, brought about by the First World War, makes her performances all the more poignant."

Harrell now plays Du Pre's Stradivarius, although he is airing his 1720 Montagnana on this tour.

"It has a brighter, more penetrating tone that suits certain aspects of the Elgar, but in the end it's just like the difference between one great actor and another."

Although he is thrilled to have just recorded some Taneyev chamber works with violinist Vladimir Repin and pianist Mikhail Pletnev, recordings are not as important to him as they might be to a new young artist.

Harrell joins in the general lament about the state of the industry. "There is a glut on the market. There is no longer anything exciting about getting the last copy of one of two versions of the Choral Symphony. There are now 54 different versions available.

"It could be that the younger generation get used to having an unbelievable choice and won't be frozen by it," he adds. "Not me. Sometimes I go into a hotel and they've got 120 channels. I don't turn on the TV. There's just too much choice."

* Where and when: Founders Theatre, Hamilton, Thursday 8pm; Auckland Town Hall, Friday 6.30pm and Saturday 8pm