MUSIC : He’s the Phil’s Top Fiddle : Montreal-born Martin Chalifour, a well-traveled 34-year-old, is the L.A. Philharmonic’s new concertmaster. His job: to inspire his colleagues.

Concertmastering is an arcane art.

The public image of its requisite skills be gins and ends with the sight of the man or woman who walks onto stage before the conductor, bows to a limp round of applause, turns to the oboist for the tuning pitch, stands there listening to the orchestra mull it over, then sits down and plays with everyone else. He or she might play a short solo once in a while (so do others, though), but essentially the job appears to be little more than ceremonial.

The reality of the job is much more involved. It demands the psychological sensitivity and diplomatic savvy of a marriage counselor; the inspirational leadership and get-it-done ingenuity of a great quarterback with bad knees. It demands nerve, affability, patience and scholarship. It also just happens to require the skill of a star violinist. It is taught nowhere.

Actually, the concertmaster is the hardest-working and most important member of an orchestra, next to the conductor himself. And the impact a concertmaster can have on the sound of the ensemble is tremendous.

That’s why many eyes and ears will be glued to Martin Chalifour, 34, when the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Esa-Pekka Salonen begin their season this week. He’s the new concertmaster.

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“Before anything,” says Chalifour, who looks not unlike Hugh Grant and speaks in a soft, French Canadian brogue, “I like the role of the concertmaster to be catalytic--without so much directing where things should go as trying to inspire.” His focus, he says, is “the first violins and strings in general but also having enough contact--visual as well as audible--with the principal winds and brass, just to make it possible to have cohesion and uniformity when you play a phrase a certain way.”

A lot of this is accomplished through body language and facial expression, in much the same way a first violinist of a string quartet might nudge his fellow musicians, he explains.

But as he continues with the job description, things get more complicated. As the leader of the strings, the concertmaster must set the bowings, for instance, a task that not only ensures that the 60-odd string players work as a team, their bows in sync like a strutting chorus line, but also largely determines the cut and coloring of a phrase.

“The concertmaster can give the tone to how a piece is sounding in the strings by choosing bowings,” he says. “When do we go up with the bow, when do we go down? And how strongly it should sound, how sharp of an attack it can be or how smooth it should be. It’s like diction, practically.” And since composers leave either incomplete or no bowing instructions at all, the tedious but crucial job of setting bowings (and marking them in the parts) goes to the concertmaster.

It is clear that Chalifour is fascinated by this aspect of his duties, believes that it has a powerful influence on shaping a performance and, because of that influence, thinks it’s a duty best shared.

Sometimes, he points out, concertmasters mark the bowings without the input of the conductor. By contrast, he says, “I think it is the ideal way, to decide on bowing in advance and to know what the conductor likes.

“And I know Esa-Pekka is very interested in that, working ahead of time and analyzing how things could sound and how many ways there are to say a certain note.”

Indeed, Salonen’s interests are at the heart of Chalifour’s debut as the Philharmonic’s concertmaster. The music director had the final say in his appointment. He had had nothing to do with the choice of the previous concertmaster, Sidney Weiss--brought in by the very different musical personality of Carlo Maria Giulini in 1979--which was underlined when Weiss offered an abrupt and never-much-explained resignation just weeks before the end of the 1993-94 season.

That was Salonen’s second season as the Philharmonic’s music director, and though Weiss stated then that the parting was amicable, his very noncommittal remarks explaining the resignation (“for personal reasons”), as well as its timing and abruptness, caused many to speculate that the new conductor had made what is sometimes called an executive decision. When several other musicians announced their resignations at the same time, it looked as if he might be cleaning out the attic.

What followed was a yearlong search for a replacement. Four candidates eventually auditioned for the job by appearing as guest concertmasters with the Philharmonic and by performing private recitals for the musicians. Among them was Alexander Treger, the interim concertmaster, who has been a violinist with the Philharmonic since 1974 and is a much-admired soloist in his own right.

Chalifour says he’s not entirely sure why he was chosen. But during the course of a long conversation it becomes clear that he and Salonen had hit it off.

In a statement announcing the appointment, Salonen said as much: “We were looking for a principal concertmaster who is not only an outstanding violinist with wide orchestral experience, but also a true leader and someone with whom the musicians of the Philharmonic and I could have strong rapport. In Martin Chalifour we have found exactly the person we were looking for.”

Chalifour is well aware that his good fortune is the misfortune of others. He says he knows nothing of what led to Weiss’ resignation, and as for Treger, Chalifour quickly professes sympathy and great musical respect. Treger has taken a sabbatical for the season.

“He and I have talked,” Chalifour says, “and I have been in that situation myself twice in other orchestras, and I understand how he must feel.

“But,” the new man observes, “it is common for an organization to bring in new blood.”

Chalifour was born in Montreal and started violin lessons at age 4 with the Suzuki method. (He laughs at this but notes that everyone in his class went on to become professional violinists.) He continued his studies at summer camps (where he discovered other kids like him and became more serious about his practicing) and the Montreal Conservatory. At 20, he landed at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. His first job after graduation was as associate concertmaster of the Atlanta Symphony, and he went on to the same position with the Cleveland Orchestra.

Winning the Atlanta associate role was something of a coup for a 23-year-old just out of school. At the time, Chalifour says, he hadn’t really paid much attention to orchestral repertory, having concentrated on those standard rations of a young violinist--solo sonatas and concertos. But when his teacher recommended him for the Atlanta audition, Chalifour decided to give it a shot. “I practiced like mad for 2 1/2 weeks,” he says, “started smoking it made me so nervous, and I got the job. Robert Shaw gave me a chance: ‘Let’s take him. He’s young, he’s green, but it’s interesting.’ ” Chalifour has been at it ever since.

During the last two seasons in Cleveland, he was called on to serve as acting concertmaster, left-hand man to music director Christoph von Dohnanyi.

“And to actually step in as Martin had to do,” explains Dohnanyi, “because our [longtime concertmaster] Danny Majeske died, and was really out pretty suddenly--to step in for him was quite a challenge, and I think he did very well with it. He helped maintain the quality of the orchestra over those very critical years and even helped to improve many things.”

Dohnanyi, who considers Chalifour “a virtuoso violinist,” adds: “I hated to lose him, but I wish him all the luck.”

Chalifour brings along a wife, Nancy, whom he met in Atlanta (she is an arts administrator), and two children, Eric, 4, and Stephanie, 8, to whom he speaks only French. Children’s books and videos in the language--”Mon Ami Willi,” “Les 101 Dalmatiens”--inhabit bookcases in their San Marino home.

Which is one clue as to why he’s particularly happy to have gotten the L.A. job.

“Pluralism is good,” he states deliberately. “I’d much rather be in a place where there are more highs and lows than somewhere where your next-door neighbor knows everything about you but not much else goes on. I love the international aspect of this city, and being French and wanting to keep my identity is part of that too.”

But in the end, it’s the job, not the setting, that fires up Chalifour. It is, after all, exactly what he wanted: “my own first true concertmastership.”

A nd what is that going to be like? When asked what strengths he brings to the position, he mentions his playing, his knowledge of styles, his willingness to inspire, his interpersonal skills and his dedication. (He counts “being over-modest” as perhaps his greatest liability.) And when will we hear him as a soloist? In November comes the mini-violin concerto within Strauss’ “Ein Heldenleben,” and next summer he will perform Lalo’s “Symphonie Espagnole” at the Hollywood Bowl.

But his dedication to the team rather than to his own playing is the main current of the conversation. He mentions, for instance, what happens when Salonen is out of town and a guest conductor is on the podium: “I think immediately I take more of the defensive side, to make sure that the orchestra is treated like a serious artistic entity, safeguarding the integrity of the group, if that’s an issue.” This is the hey-you-can’t-talk-to-my-mother-that-way part of the job. He recalls a “very renowned” soloist who came to Cleveland who stomped his feet and shouted at members of the ensemble when things weren’t to his liking. Chalifour doesn’t go into details, but he says he made sure the soloist didn’t do it again.

He is already a great admirer of his new protectorate:

“I think the strength of the Philharmonic is partly going all out and taking chances and risks and playing with a lot of vitality and freedom. In Cleveland, we didn’t often take as many risks, and kept things under tight control. And I do believe in risk a lot and in playing with an edge a little bit that the audience can perceive. The orchestra here, I believe, plays with many more decibels than the orchestra in Cleveland”--which Chalifour counts as a good thing.

Still, he is confident that he can have a positive influence on the sound here. His first thoughts are to make an adjustment to the sound of the strings in the Classical repertory, especially in Mozart (interestingly, the composer considered by many to be Salonen’s weakest suit). Chalifour would like to develop what he describes as a more intimate and transparent string sound for these works.

A while later, interview over, we chat idly about various things as he escorts me to the front door. All of a sudden, an absent look comes over his face and his eyes become distant. He has remembered something, has remembered himself: Must keep everyone happy.

Perhaps, he says, we should say that only a “slight” adjustment in the string sound is needed.

He’s going to do just fine.