Lynn Harrell
Cellist and former principal of the Royal Academy of Music who once played a concert in the Vatican
LYNN HARRELL, who has died aged 76, was an American cellist who enjoyed a prominent position in British concert halls; for a stimulating 16 months, from September 1993 until January 1995, he was principal of the Royal Academy of Music, and during that time gave a powerful performance of Bruch’s Kol Nidrei with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra for Pope John Paul II and the Chief Rabbi of Rome to mark the Vatican’s first official commemoration of the Holocaust.
Harrell, who appeared with many of the world’s leading orchestras, was a generous teacher to generations of students. He also made chamber music with Vladimir Ashkenazy and Itzhak Perlman, sharing with them a Grammy Award in 1982 for their recording of the Tchaikovsky Trio.
He was not, however, a great enthusiast of the recorded medium. “Maybe for the first week or so after I get the record, I listen to it and I enjoy it. But then…” he told the journalist Bruce Duffie.
On stage Harrell was known for his pure intonation and warm expression, whether in the emotionally charged depths of the Elgar concerto or the exposed solo work of the Bach cello suites, and critics wrote admiringly of how he took risks with his interpretation while producing a full and free tone from his instrument.
Lynn Morris Harrell was born in New York City on January 30 1944, the youngest of three children of the celebrated baritone Mack Harrell, who died from cancer when Lynn was 15, and his violinist wife Marjorie (née Fulton), who perished three years later in a car accident on her way to a concert.
After some abortive piano lessons at the age of six, Lynn took up the cello aged nine. Following his parents’ deaths he moved into the Philadelphia home of his teacher, Orlando Cole, whom he later credited with expanding his knowledge of music beyond the cello repertoire.
He had earlier studied in Dallas with Lev Aronson and at the Juilliard School, New York, with Leonard Rose, who also taught Yo-yo Ma. In 1962 he reached the semi-finals of the Tchaikovsky competition in Moscow.
He took part in masterclasses with Gregor Piatigorsky and Pablo Casals, and at the age of 20 gave a debut recital at Carnegie Hall. “He has music in his bones, plus a technique that many cellists two or three times his age can envy,” observed a New York Times critic.
George Szell, who had known Harrell’s father at the Metropolitan Opera, offered him a place in the Cleveland Orchestra and after two years he became principal cellist, a post he held for seven years. “At the time I was attracted not by the challenge of being in a great orchestra, but by the certainty of a weekly pay cheque,” he said.
Szell died in 1970 and Harrell, convinced that he was then ready for a solo career, spent his entire savings on a New York recital that was delivered to a near-empty hall. A handful of uninspiring engagements followed, but it took a well-reviewed concert with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in 1972, and success in the Avery Fisher Prize three years later, to launch him properly.
In Cleveland he had met James Levine, the orchestra’s associate conductor and a fine pianist, and they gave many recitals together. Levine, a regular guest conductor with the New Philharmonia in London, brought Harrell to the Royal Festival Hall for performances of Britten’s Cello Symphony in November 1973 and Dvorak’s Cello Concerto in December 1974. The following month he gave a recital with Ashkenazy at the Queen Elizabeth Hall.
Harrell was soon a frequent soloist with British orchestras. In 1986 he was appointed to the international chair of cello studies at the Royal Academy of Music before his brief tenure seven years later as principal, which foundered on the difficulties of juggling an international solo career with administrative responsibilities.
He returned to the international concert circuit and to Texas, serving as professor of cello at Rice University, Houston; latterly he lived in Santa Monica, California. Among his cellos was a 1673 Stradivari that had once belonged to Jacqueline du Pré.
During the late 1990s Harrell had to undergo surgery on both hands. In 2012 he had a run-in with Delta Air Lines over his cello, which always occupied a full-fare seat on his travels; after 11 years of allowing him to accrue airmiles the airline terminated his membership, confiscated his existing miles and banned him for life from its frequent-flyer programme. Having been raised a Methodist, Harrell converted to Judaism in 2011, and in 2017 he starred in Cello, a 20-minute film about a cellist suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
Lynn Harrell’s first marriage to the writer Linda Blandford was dissolved and in 2002 he married the violinist Helen Nightengale. Together they formed Heartbeats, a charity that works with children. She survives him with twins from his first marriage and two children from his second.
Lynn Harrell, born January 30 1944, died April 27 2020