Yo Yo Ma

World-famous cellist Yo-Yo Ma and his longtime collaborator, pianist Emanuel Ax, are joined by violinist Leonidas Kavakos in their first recording together of all three of the piano trios of Johannes Brahms. Ma and Ax have built together a distinguished catalogue of Brahms recordings, but this is their first recording of the Piano Trios and their first collaboration with Kavakos.

Yo-Yo Ma and pianist Kathryn Stott come together again, this time for Songs of Comfort and Hope, set for release on December 11, 2020 on Sony Classical. Available now for preorder, Songs of Comfort and Hope is inspired by the series of recorded-at-home musical offerings that Ma began sharing in the first days of the COVID-19 lockdown in the United States. Throughout the spring and summer, Yo-Yo Ma’s #SongsofComfort grew from a self-shot video of Antonín Dvořák’s “Goin’ Home” into a worldwide effort that has reached more than 18 million people.

Samuel Barber's cello concerto has long been considered the weak sister among his three concertos for solo instrument; this release may alter that perception. It was written in 1945, when he was thirty-five, a time in his life when he was still brimming with confidence about his music, not yet on the defensive against attacks received from many quarters, and not yet attempting to bring contemporary elements into his work. Some of the brouhaha was well-intentioned: Americans in the musical world naturally wanted our first internationally successful composer to represent us at our best, our newest and freshest; others decried his conservative romanticism out of personal jealousy at his wide acceptance.

Sony Classical is proud to announce the release of Yo-Yo Ma’s new album Six Evolutions – Bach Cello Suites, his third and final recording of these works. Bach and his Cellos Suites entered Yo-Yo Ma’s life when he was four, when he learned the first measure of the Prélude to Suite No. 1 under his father’s instruction. Ma has never lost his initial fascination.

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.

Lots of composers fall head over heels for the cello, and Bolling's suite for classical cellist Yo-Yo Ma indicates that he finds this instrument a particularly noble, expressive vehicle for his classical/jazz musings. The distinctive Bolling formula still has plenty of mileage here, this time with a more expansive lyrical bent and no cutesy detours. "Baroque In Rhythm," in particular, sounds very fresh with its interpolations of boogie-woogie and ragtime amidst the Bachian counterpoint. "Romantique" is enlivened by some Brubeck-like chording and swinging from Bolling, and "Galop" has real panache. However, despite some inspired passages, the yawning, overlong lyrical stretches of "Concertante" and "Ballade" may try the patience of some jazz listeners.

These are among the finest modern recordings of Beethoven's Cello Sonatas. The two players are well matched, as they should be in this music, which is just as demanding for the pianist as for the cellist, if not more so.

"Hope Amid Tears," the new album by Yo-Yo Ma together with his friend and pianist Emanuel Ax, presents Beethoven’s five sonatas for cello and piano in the order in which they were composed, tracing an important arc in Beethoven’s development and approach as a composer. Joining them are Beethoven’s three sets of variations for cello and piano.