Ma, Yo-Yo

Beethoven - Choral Fantasy and Triple Concerto for Violin, Cello & Piano / Barenboim, Ma, Perlman

It would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to assemble a better group of musicians to perform Beethoven's Triple Concerto and Choral Fantasy. Daniel Barenboim has been so busy conducting the world's top orchestras and opera companies that there is a danger of forgetting what an excellent pianist he is. He conducts both of these works from the keyboard, as Beethoven would have expected, engaging in chamber music-like dialogue in the concerto and creating a sense of impromptu in the Fantasy's long piano solo, which Beethoven wrote for himself and partly improvised at the first performance. Itzhak Perlman and Yo-Yo Ma are sensitive, alert, and technically superb partners.

The music is not Beethoven's most familiar, but it is absolutely charming. The concerto is appealing in its melodic material and the intricate interactions among the soloists and orchestra. The Choral Fantasy features a long piano solo that Beethoven wrote for himself, plus a choral melody that sounds like a preliminary sketch for the last movement of his Ninth Symphony. Both works pose unusual balance challenges, to which Barenboim and the recording engineers rise impressively. --Joe McLellan

Yo-Yo Ma: Complete Cello Suites - Inspired By Bach

Marsalis on Music

Wynton Marsalis' acclaimed Marsalis On Music series available as a 4 DVD boxed set. Wynton Marsalis is a strong and respected voice in music education. A 16-time Grammy Award winner, Mr. Marsalis is universally recognized as the world's leading jazz and classical trumpeter. This DVD format includes full chaptering, allowing for quick and accurate use in a classroom environment. A detailed series chapter summary booklet is included, with a DVD-ROM function that allows the booklet to be re-printed as needed. The DVD's are close-captioned for the hearing challenged. Featured performers include The Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, which is made up of high achieving student musicians from across America, the famed conductor Seiji Ozawa and master cellist Yo Yo Ma.

Carnegie Hall at 100: A Place of Dreams

Dvorak in Prague - A Celebration / Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, Frederica von Stade, Boston Symphony, Seizi Ozawa

Dvorak In Prague: A Celebration
Superstars Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, Frederica von Stade, and the Boston Symphony led by Seiji Ozawa perform in this concert that marks the 100th anniversary of Dvorak's New World Symphony.

1. Carnival Overture, Op. 92
2. String Quartedt No. 5, Op. 9: Romance In F Minor For Violin & Orchestra, Op. 11
3. From the Bohemian Forest: Klid (Silent Woods) For Cello & Orchestra, Op. 68, No. 5
4. Humoresque In G-Flat Major, Op. 101, No. 7
5. Rusalka (Act I): 'Mesicku na nebi hlubokem' (O Moon High up in the Deep Sky)
6. Psalm 149 For Chorus & Orchestra, Op. 79 (Sing unto the Lord a New Song)
7. Humoresque In E-Flat Minor, Op. 101, No. 1
8. Gypsy Melodies for Voice and Piano, Op. 55: 'Kdyz mne stara matka' (No. 4) (Songs My Mother Taught Me) 'Struna naladena' (No. 5) (Tune Thy Strings)
9. 'Dumky' Trio, Op. 90: Allegro (Dumka No. 5)
10. Slavonic Dance In E Minor, Op. 72, No. 2
11. Slavonic Dance In C Major, Op. 72, No. 7

Astor Piazzolla in Portrait

Appalachian Journey / Ma, Meyer, O'Connor

Yo-Yo Ma - Inspired by Bach No. 3, Falling Down Stairs (Cello Suite 3)

"Falling Down Stairs" (55 min.) features Bach's Suite No. 3 for Unaccompanied Cello. Although he knew the music well, Mark Morris had never thought to choreograph a dance based on Bach's Third Suite. He felt the music was complete in itself. But through a close collaboration with Yo-Yo Ma, an astonishing dance emerges, a true three-way collaboration between musician, dancers and filmmaker Barbara Willis Sweete.

Yo-Yo Ma - Inspired by Bach Vol. 3, Struggle for Hope / Six Gestures (Cello Suites 5 & 6)

"Struggle for Hope" (55 min.) features Bach's Suite No. 5 for Unaccompanied Cello. Master Kabuki actor Tamasaburo Bando sets out on a journey to discover, through traditional Japanese dance, the universality and emotion of Bach's Fifth Suite. The result is this revelatory, cross-cultural and trans-oceanic collaboration with Yo-Yo Ma, sensitively documented by filmmaker Niv Fichman. "Six Gestures" (53 min.) features Bach's Suite No. 6 for Unaccompanied Cello. Bach and ice dance? Yo-Yo Ma believes that world champion ice dancers Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean have done for their sport what Bach did for the cello--that is, to dramatically redefine the artistic possibilities and to shatter all preconceptions. This mesmerizing film by Patricia Rozema (Mansfield Park) explores the outcome of this unlikely collaboration, with Bach himself as the dramatic counterpoint.

Yo-Yo Ma - Inspired by Bach Vol. 1, The Music Garden / The Sound of the Carceri (Cello Suites 1 & 2)

"The Music Garden" (60 min.) features Bach's Suite No. 1 for Unaccompanied Cello. What if we created a garden inspired by Bach? In their quest for the answer, Yo-Yo Ma and garden designer Julie Moir Messervy journey from Boston to Toronto, across bureaucratic miles of frustration and through seasons of changing hope. Their remarkable tale is movingly documented by filmmaker Kevin McMahon. "The Sound of the Carceri" (55 min.) features Bach's Suite No. 2 for Unaccompanied Cello. Imagine Giovanni Piranesi's dazzling "carceri" (prison) etchings, the unrealized dreams of this 18th-century Italian master architect, brought to life in a computer-rendered 3-D "virtual" collaboration. In this cutting-edge film by Francois Girard, Yo-Yo Ma explores Bach's mysterious Second Suite, creating with his music a sound to match the invented spaces of our imagination.