Promise of magnetic event

By WILLIAM DART

Li-Wei has just emerged from the concert hall after playing Prokofiev's Sinfonia Concertante with the BBC Scottish Symphony in the small Scottish town of Stirling.

Even through the crackle of a mobile phone, he is obviously happy with the performance, and so he should be.

The following day, conductor Jerzy Maksymiuk would come in for some flak from the Scotsman, but not the soloist. According to the newspaper's critic, Kenneth Walton, "Li-Wei's magnetic presence galvanised the occasion".

The 26-year-old Chinese-Australian has been doing just this for two decades since, as a 10-year-old, he dashed off the Kabalevsky Concerto at the Shanghai Music School.

These were times of political turmoil in China, but Li-Wei confesses he was "quite sheltered at the Music School. Our job was to play our instruments and learn as much as we could.

"The school was well-sponsored by the Government and, because there was so much competition among us, we didn't feel so much external pressure."

In the late 80s his pianist mother was teaching in Tasmania, which provoked the family's move to Australia. "She thought Australia was fantastic so we moved there. In China everything had been very technically focused and I was now able to appreciate the cultural background that lay behind the music I was playing."

Looking back, he has no regrets about those years. "I'm sure there are people who have suffered by committing their youth to music, but for me it was not so much of a deal.

"In Australia I studied commerce at school and didn't specialise in music until I went to Manchester [he studied at the Royal Northern College of Music, where he is now Professor of Cello].

"Because of this, a lot of my friends in Melbourne are non-musicians and I feel pretty healthy about that."

Among the Australian culture he picked up along the way is a passion for watching Australian Rules. "I would have loved to have played, but I was too thin. I would have been knocked out."

Sport's loss was music's gain. Li-Wei's breakthrough came when he carried off the ABC's Young Performer of the Year award at 17. It was the first of many, including first prize in Christchurch's 1997 Adam International Cello Competition.

"That was a tough one. It was like a tennis tournament and if you're rated No 3 or No 4 people start to expect things from you."

Those who expected great things in 1997 weren't disappointed, nor was the audience when Li-Wei returned to Christchurch two years later and gave a dazzling guest recital, accompanied by his mother.

The music ranged from the passionate Barber to quirky Ligeti, and Li-Wei says he is an enthusiast for contemporary music. "I feel we really have to perform it these days, and I feel very close to a lot of contemporary composers as well as their music because it's from my age."

Tomorrow we are being given the Schumann Concerto, one of the composer's loveliest scores and, for Li-Wei, one of the most demanding.

"Because it's a classical-romantic concerto, you always have to balance both aspects. It cannot be as wild as Rachmaninov but at the same time you can't forget the classicism of Haydn. For me that is the difficulty."

We missed out on a visit from Li-Wei last year when he was invited on to the BBC New Generation Artists Scheme, but in 2001 his exultant Barber Concerto was one of the highlights of that year.

He admits he feels more comfortable with romantic cello concertos.

"Now, it's easier for us to play romantic music with metal strings and Belgian bridges, all aimed for giving the big, rich sound.

"If one really wants to play Bach or Haydn, I strongly recommend the cellist goes back to using a period instrument, or re-pitches the cello."

Among cellists, Li-Wei is a great admirer of Rostropovich "because he expanded the repertoire so much. After all, it was Rostropovich who encouraged Prokofiev to write the Sinfonia Concertante that I have just played."

Yo-Yo Ma is cherished for "reaching out to different media, combining Bach with ice-skaters and contemporary dance. Not all of his concepts succeed as much as he might like, but this is a challenge we all have to take seriously because the cellist's repertoire is so limited compared to that of the pianist."

But surely the big, beefy Russian sound of Rostropovich is far removed from Li-Wei's more keenly focused playing? "Technically we are different but then cello playing has so much to do with the physical nature of the musician. My hands, like Yo-Yo Ma's, are Asian and not as sturdy as those of Rostropovich. Our sound is not naturally so broad but we have other strengths and have to adapt."

Li-Wei is looking forward to working with conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya tomorrow, and the cellist has no shortage of conductor stories.

His fondest memories are of Yehudi Menuhin, with whom he toured Australia and Asia just before Menuhin's death - "not the most technical of conductors but his musicality was overwhelming".

But it was Vernon Handley, conducting a 15-year-old Li-Wei in the Elgar Concerto, who left the most vivid impression. "It was my first Elgar. Handley came up afterwards and said how fantastically I played, but did I know how many times he'd conducted this work? The answer was 400.

"I was struck by just how much you can learn from others. Music is not a dead thing - we are constantly being enriched by collaborating with other musicians."

Performance

* Who: Li-Wei, with the Auckland Philharmonia

* Where: Auckland Town Hall

* When: Thursday, 8pm