Highways and Byways of Lynn Harrell's Life in Music : Music: The cellist's solo performance tonight follows the local premiere of an elegy composed in memory of his mother.

By LIBBY SLATE

Nov. 9, 1989 12 AM PT

For cellist Lynn Harrell, the Los Angeles Philharmonic concert program on which he guests tonight through Sunday should be an emotional occasion. Immediately preceding his solo spot will come the first local performances of Samuel Adler’s “Elegy for String Orchestra”--composed in 1962 in memory of Harrell’s mother, violinist Marjorie Fulton Harrell, who was killed in a car accident returning from a recital.

It is coincidence that the “Elegy” and Harrell are both on the program.

“I don’t know anything about this piece, really, except that it’s dedicated to my mother,” Harrell said over a sushi lunch at USC, where he holds the Piatigorsky Chair of Cello teaching position. “I’m looking forward to hearing it.”

“Both Lynn’s parents were great friends of mine and Lynn took theory lessons from me when he was 12,” Adler said by telephone from Rochester, N.Y., where he is chairman of composition at the Eastman School of Music. In 1962, Adler and Marjorie Fulton were on the music faculty at North Texas State University in Denton.

“The Dallas Symphony music director called Tuesday (the day after the accident) to ask if I could write something in tribute for their Thursday subscription concert,” the composer said. “I’d been sketching a slow movement of a string quartet, so I took that and worked on it overnight. It’s become my most widely performed orchestral work.”

Harrell has deep feelings about his own Philharmonic selection, Shostakovich’s First Cello Concerto.

“Shostakovich’s emotional world, and what he creates within that world, is extraordinary. At times there is a hopelessness, sadness, fear of impending 20th-Century crises. That anxiety, coupled with pent-up anger and frustration that he evidently felt all his life, comes through. This piece affects me long after I’ve finished playing it.”

The 45-year-old Los Angeles resident has gained wide recognition since leaving his position as the Cleveland Orchestra’s principal cellist in 1971 to pursue a solo career. But for several weeks each year he trades his cello bow for a baton, seeking opportunities as a guest conductor. Over the past decade he has toured the United States and Yugoslavia with the Belgrade Chamber Orchestra, conducted the Solisti di Veneto Chamber Orchestra in Italy, and recorded with the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam.

Nov. 16 and 17 he conducts the San Diego Symphony. Later in the month he leads the Chicago Symphony in a private concert. In February he directs the San Antonio Symphony and in March, the National Symphony.

“I was (conductor) Jimmy Levine’s associate in the orchestra’s training program in Cleveland from 1966 to 1971,” he explained.

“Through my work with the L.A. Philharmonic Institute”--the summer training program for which Harrell served as faculty member and since 1988 has been artistic director--”I’d come to miss having a hand in developing and re-creating orchestral masterpieces. I had to do something about that.

“As a conductor, it’s exciting to have the power of standing in front of 100 people and telling them what to do,” he added.

“On the other hand, I have a loss of control. I can do anything I want to on the cello but when I conduct, I have to depend on other people. I have to find a way to create a focused unit. It’s a bothersome challenge.”

Still, the transition to conducting has not been particularly difficult, Harrell said. His own orchestral background is a distinct advantage, in terms of knowing how to conduct each instrumental section and style of music, finding a musical approach to appeal to the players’ creative sense and, as he puts it, “Letting them get their musical jollies off. So often a conductor is inhibitory, telling musicians what not to do. I found that very frustrating. I try to tell them what to do.”

Harrell’s soloist status is also a plus: “I come (to an orchestra) with a great deal given me for free. I don’t have to gain their respect, which is nice.”

With his 15-year association with the L.A. Philharmonic, does he anticipate ever conducting the orchestra?

“I never thought of it!” he said, genuinely surprised. “I would feel nervous. They know me not just as a soloist but as a music educator, through the institute. An orchestra doesn’t want to be lectured to, and if your relationship with them is already educational, it’s more difficult.”

Harrell has a more recently formed association with the San Diego Symphony. Last year he became its musical adviser, helping to put the beleaguered group back on its artistic feet after an 18-month, financially induced hiatus; with the appointment of Yoav Talmi as music director, Harrell’s responsibilities are being phased out.

“I think the situation there has gotten a great deal better,” he said. “I think I helped the relationship between the players and management--I was a link, able to communicate their concerns.”

Playing remains Harrell’s own primary concern, though he plans to continue conducting.

“I’ve never had any conducting lessons,” he remarked, “but more and more people have told me it’s not something you can learn--you have to find your own way. I’m at an age where I’m not so hung up with what I can’t do--I’m concentrating on what I can do.”