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Is it fanciful to say that in Isserlis’s hands it can take people even further into solace?And as he plays, is it wrong to enjoy those masses of bubbly ringlets, greying round the edges, as they tumble with every toss of the head? As he flings his bowing arm about, scowls at demons, smiles at fancies, his expressions make a musical score in themselvesSteven Isserlis is featured in a Channel 4 film, `Schumann’s Lost Romance’, to be screened at the Barbican Cinema, 4 October. Though he remembers their affair as utterly spiritual, it never really flourishes in the viewers’ eyes since their assignations are restrained by clipped dialogue and hurried sex. After being badly burned in a plane crash, Almasy lies in a bombed villa under the care of an army nurse, the dreamy Hana (Binoche), and reminisces over his affair with Katherine (Kristin Scott-Thomas). Late September, RCA release Isserlis playing the Schumann cello concerto in A Minor, which he performs on 3 October, 7.30pm in the Barbican Hall, London EC1 (0171-638 8891). “I tell my students, `Don’t do things to the music, let the music do things to you’.”Isserlis says that great music has plenty of room for performers to assert themselves, and that any sensible artist can find satisfaction within that discipline.This autumn, there will be a wonderful opportunity to test the theory. For the third time this year, Isserlis will be playing Elgar’s cello concerto.

He is said now to “own” the piece as truly as did Jacqueline Du Pre in her day. In the hands of almost any player, the piece will transport people to the mists of a dawn in the Malverns in the evening of a man’s life, for a discourse on ageing which seems to have hope, regret and anger. A trust of admirers led by a merchant banker and a financial adviser is attempting to raise the money as a loan “I own 10 per cent of it now,” says Isserlis. He is proud of his partnership with the violinist Joshua Bell, and his teaching at the virtually private International Musicians Seminar in Cornwall.

This is saying that a discerning audience at the Wigmore Hall will remain preferable to stadia-loads of the star-struck.It was offers to play chamber music with his peers, and word of mouth in the business, that got him better work. He can be agreeably elitist round the edges: “I would love to be the Fischer-Dieskau of the cello but I have no desire whatsoever to be the Pavarotti,” Isserlis told another interviewer. One guesses that the strength of Isserlis’s musicianship lies in the powerful tension he maintains between restraint, balance and intelligence, and emotion, expressiveness, and swank. “Many people have star quality who don’t think they have,” he says generously “And the reverse is also true,” he adds with acerbity.