Yo Yo Ma 6 Chello Suites

Very little of what we call "classical music" has been specially composed for children (with narration addressed specifically to them), either for didactic reasons or for plain, simple enjoyment. In the former category (to familiarize children with the instruments of the orchestra) are Benjamin Britten's "Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra" and Camille Saint-Saëns's "Carnival of the Animals" (which, strictly speaking, had been an "adult" conceit on Saint-Saëns's part). In the latter category are such classics as Francis Poulenc's "Babar the Elephant" and Sergei Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf." But the list is abysmally small.

The Cello Concerto No.1 in C Major, Hob. VIIb/1, by Joseph Haydn was composed around 1761–1765 for longtime friend Joseph Weigl, then the principal cellist of Prince Nicolaus's Esterhazy Orchestra. The work was presumed lost until 1961, when musicologist Oldrich Pulkert discovered a copy of the score at the Prague National Museum. Though some doubts have been raised about the authenticity of the work, most experts believe that Haydn did compose this concerto.

With adventurous crossover projects coming one after another from Yo-Yo Ma, it's nice to be able to revisit some of the performances that brought him to the top of the heap among cellists and among classical musicians in general. This disc includes Dvorák performances by Ma from various 1990s discs, with his lovely 1995 reading of the Cello Concerto in B minor, with Kurt Masur leading the New York Philharmonic, as the centerpiece.