‘Golden Age’ for Cello : Symphony: Cellist Ralph Kirshbaum says young cellists today are uncannily proficient.

Cellist Ralph Kirshbaum grew up in Tyler, Tex., and has made his home in London for the past two decades. But when the lanky, 46-year-old cellist performs in San Diego, he views it as a kind of homecoming.

“San Diego was always a summer retreat for my family,” Kirshbaum said in a phone interview from his London flat. “My father played (violin) in the San Diego Symphony during its summer seasons in Balboa Park. I was 7 or 8 at the time, and I remember playing on the beach. I don’t recall much about the orchestra, but I did go to the concerts.”

A frequent performer at the La Jolla SummerFest, Kirshbaum returns next week to play the Robert Schumann Cello Concerto with the San Diego Symphony under Yoav Talmi. The symphony engagement gives Kirshbaum the opportunity to give his father, who retired to La Jolla several years ago, an apt birthday present. Since Joseph Kirshbaum’s birthday is Dec. 12, the retired orchestra conductor and violinist will have the satisfaction of hearing his son perform at Copley Symphony Hall on his natal day.

His father’s attentive ear, however, was a mixed blessing when Ralph was learning to play the cello.

“I remember him listening out in the hallway while I was practicing. He would come in and pounce on me if I didn’t keep every note and every interval precisely in tune.”

Being taught by one’s parent is fraught with difficulties, but in Tyler, where Joseph Kirshbaum conducted the East Texas Symphony Orchestra, there were no cello teachers, so his father started him on his chosen string instrument. After a few years of cello study, Ralph Kirshbaum’s parents drove him to Dallas every week, where he studied with the noted instructor Lev Aronson, who also taught Lynn Harrell. But Kirshbaum now sees the value of his father’s early discipline.

“He taught me to listen with intensity and concentration, especially while practicing,” Kirshbaum said. “There is no question that he had a profound influence on me. One of the main functions of a teacher is to teach students to listen and to concentrate. Only then will they reach a point where they can solve their own musical problems.”

Kirshbaum’s commitment to teaching is as strong as his devotion to performance. In addition to his position as distinguished cello professor at Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, England, he founded the Manchester International Cello Festival in 1988, a biennial conference that brings the world’s best cello players and students together to study and perform.

Kirshbaum sees today’s cellists as belonging to a golden age of cello performance.

“Certainly in terms of the number of cellists who basically play the instrument extremely well, it’s unprecedented. I frequently give master classes as I travel around the world, and I am amazed to hear how advanced young people at age 14 and 15 are. I certainly wasn’t that proficient at that age.”

He credits a higher level of performance by today’s cello soloists--from Janos Starker and Mstislav Rostropovich, who won a Kennedy Center Award this year, to Yo-Yo Ma and Harrell--as inspiring the younger generation. He was, of course, too modest to put himself on his list of world-class cellists.

“Today, when audiences hear the cello played, at least they hear it played exceedingly well. Here in England, a whole crop of young cellists has been influenced by the playing of (the late) Jacqueline Du Pre. She was one of those larger-than-life figures who inspired young musicians to take up the instrument.”

Unlike the violin and piano, which has enjoyed virtuoso champions since the days of Paganini and Liszt, the cello was not seen as an instrument for virtuosos until the mid-20th Century.

“Pablo Casals was the turning point, with Emanuel Feuermann not far behind. Before them, cellists played in a different way. Their sound was very small because their arms were pinned to their sides. It was Casals who really began to free the body in playing the cello, expanding its range of sound and liberating its many colors. Casals showed that a solo cellist could take chances. as opposed to being restricted. But before his career, the cello simply was not a solo instrument.”

Yoav Talmi conducts the San Diego Symphony in Schumann’s Cello Concerto with Ralph Kirshbaum, Respighi’s “The Birds” and Bizet’s Symphony in C Major. At 8 p.m. Dec. 11-12, 2 p.m. Dec. 3 at Copley Symphony Hall, 750 B St.

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Pricey fiddle. When 12-year-old violinist Tamaki Kawakubo joins the San Diego Symphony tonight to play the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, she will perform on the legendary “Cathedral” Stradivarius. The prized instrument, said to be valued at $2 million, was recently purchased by an anonymous patron who, with the assistance of Chicago’s Bein and Fushi rare violin shop, loaned it to the aspiring young Los Angeles musician.

Kawakubo, a pupil of Robert Lipsett, debuted with the symphony in July. She has also played with the Pacific Symphony, the Glendale Symphony and the Dallas Chamber Orchestra. She made her solo debut at age 8 with the San Antonio Symphony, and recently added motion pictures to her resume, appearing in 20th Century Fox’s “For the Boys.”

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On the air. KFSD-FM (94.1) will resume its weekly broadcasts of the San Diego Symphony on Jan. 3 with Yoav Talmi conducting Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana.” The impressive performance of Orff’s lusty cantata with the San Diego Master Chorale and the La Jolla Symphony Chorus opened the 1992-93 season in October. Station program director Kingsley McLaren will host the weekly program, which will air at 8 p.m.

CRITIC’S CHOICE / ‘SICILIENNE’ PREMIERE

The Allegro chamber ensemble premieres James Whitsitt’s “Sicilienne” tonight at 8 in Mesa College’s Apolliad Theatre.

“Since Allegro is known for its performance of Baroque music, I took a Baroque dance form and gave it more of a 20th-Century treatment,” explained the San Diego composer. He described the style of his single-movement opus as “harmonically very palatable, using triadic harmony in a neoclassical manner.”

In addition to “Sicilienne,” Allegro will offer works by Martinu and Vivaldi. The local ensemble includes flutist Suzanne Kennedy, oboist Karen Victor, cellist Ming Zhong and pianist John Danke. Violinist Judith Coker joins the ensemble for this performance.