Yo Yo Ma Bach Cello Suites today

[thomas]

Thanks for posting the link to that in a banner today. Just finished watching it. All I can say is that that was like viewing and listening to perfection. What a master. We are so fortunate to have him among us. And for the genius of Bach to write those suites. Timeless.

[j44ke]

One of the best things about Yo Yo Ma is that he is a really nice guy. And I think that is where his music comes from. He plays generously and graciously.

You are right about Bach's Six Suites. I have played them - obviously not as eloquently as Yo Yo Ma - and they are so modern! Mathematical & expressive. Terribly difficult in some places but you look at the sheet music and say this should not be so tricky. Bow technique! So much not on the down beat some movements feel like you never exhale.

[guido]

I used to play the suites on baritone saxophone. I was a hack jazz player, but even at my level they did something magical.

[Too Tall]

Cool, glad some folks tuned in. The man is a treasure.

[thomas]

One of the best things about Yo Yo Ma is that he is a really nice guy. And I think that is where his music comes from. He plays generously and graciously.

You are right about Bach's Six Suites. I have played them - obviously not as eloquently as Yo Yo Ma - and they are so modern! Mathematical & expressive. Terribly difficult in some places but you look at the sheet music and say this should not be so tricky. Bow technique! So much not on the down beat some movements feel like you never exhale.

I am a beginner cellist (should be practicing now actually). To watch him play those is like watching the impossible become possible. I think someone most really appreciates mastery when they are a student themselves, whether it's a musical instrument, a sport, or something else.

[vertical_doug]

I like Yo Yo Ma but prefer Du Pre. I like the fact that upon her death Du Pre passed the Davidoff Stradivarius to YoYo... Yo Yo keeps it set up to play Baroque music so I assumed he played the Bach Cello suites on the same instrument as she did.

[j44ke]

I met Yo Yo Ma as a 16 year old who was tired of schlepping a cello everywhere. And he was so cool. When you are a kid, anything formulaic is drudgery. And you are in a crowd of other kids who largely are forced into that drudgery by well-meaning parents who were musicians or scholars or otherwise striving for your intellectual enhancement for your own good. "This is for your own good." But it is really hard to feel like you actually do "own" it though. Spending 15 minutes talking to him backstage after a performance when my cello teacher, Mrs. Kriner (god bless and rest her soul,) slipped me through a door to meet him was the first time I'd met someone who was wholly and 100% excited about music in a way that seemed totally natural and, well, cool. Not nerdy or embarrassing or esoteric. A glimpse of infinity. I remember feeling regret at that moment that I hadn't practiced harder. And I wished I could be somewhere that sort of devotion was valued. Which is weird, because my parents would have been over the moon if I dedicated myself to cello that way. And my cello teacher would have named her next dog after me. But what could they do against the rest of the world?

Anyway, meeting him got me through another 6 years of playing, a few awards, first chair in a youth symphony and generally allowed me time to learn a lot about art and method that I would not have otherwise gotten.

Keep practicing Tom!

[mnoble485]

Thanks to whomever (who?) that posted the link and information. With so many artist doing on line impromptu music could we start a thread with a heads up to these kind of things? I know we are a strange group of travelers but we do share a love of good music in whatever form it takes.

Mike

[dashDustin]

That was 2.5hrs of “damn”.

[ZenNMotion]

Shut-in life, while it has been stressful in many ways has also presented some opportunities including exploring East Bay roads and trails in my backyard for the first time and pulling my cello out for the first time in a couple of years. Working through scales and etudes to regain the muscle memory feels like the equivalent of pedaling squares (with maybe a few occasional sounds that remind me why I don't like disc brakes). And of course working through my old repertoire starting with the Suites. The wonderful thing about the Bach Suites is how many ways they can be interpreted- listen to the same movements played by Ma, Jacqueline DuPre and Pablo Casals as three very different moods of the exact same notes, all equally brilliant . Bach provided almost no instructions beyond the notes and basic tempo markings- they used to be considered just etudes or just minor studies for his larger works. There's a legend that Casals pulled them out of obscurity when he bought a copy of the sheet music, understood what he was looking at and began to perform them regularly. Shout out to Salonista string players!

[zetroc]

Very cool. My go-to has been Rostropovich but Yo-Yo Ma is obviously a genius.