Yo Yo Ma 6 Chello Suites

A collection of works written by the great American composers. The pieces by Charles Ives and Leon Kirchner are dissonant and tense. Also on this album are the very famous Three Preludes for Piano by George Gershwin and two clarinet sonatas by Leonard Bernstein.

This disc repackages tracks of a romantic mood from a variety of Yo-Yo Ma discs released over the course of his strong-selling album career. A few of them (track 2, for example) come from recordings of straight-ahead classical repertory, and there are several new tracks, but most are taken from the cellist's fabulously successful series of crossover recordings, including Obrigado Brazil, Appalachia Waltz, and his collection of music by Italian film composer Ennio Morricone.

Focusing solely on American composers (New Yorkers, for that matter), Yo-yo Ma recorded an album with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra that reprises works from Stephen Albert, Bela Bartok, and Ernest Bloch. After being pampered by his cross-genre releases (Hush, Soul of the Tango, etc), some listeners might not actually care to hear a straightforward classical album, considering the skill with which Ma can play the cello and transform it into an instrument suitable for whatever style he's performing on a given date.

Claude Bolling and Yo-Yo Ma are a combination made in heaven on Bolling's "Suite for Cello & Jazz Piano Trio." Once again marvelously mixing together many of the basic ingredients of classical and jazz, Bolling serves up a deliciously rich stew of musical influences that manages always to sound fresh, never derivative.