Customer Reviews

Great Cello Concertos

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Nothing to be said about super star Yo-Yo, but I have to confess that as far as concertos go, Yo-Yo Ma does incredulously better in live performances, and if you turn that sentence around, you will see the gist of what I have to say.
All cellists (or any performer on any instrument really) have their more forte genres; for certain romantic concertos, such as Elgar or Schumann particulalry, I frankly don't think Yo-Yo Ma gives MILESTONE performances on this CD set. But of course, his reading of Haydn concertos is one of the most delightfully beautiful ones out there, get it by all means. Also, they were made far back when Yo-Yo Ma was but a young cellist, so that is one obvious reason why there should be better recordings around now(i.e. If you want a Dvorak Concerto by Ma, you should definitely go for the new one with Kurt Masur and New York Philharmonic).

There are numerous other recordings that truly show all admirable, enjoyable aspects of Ma playing (e.g. the exuberant and refreshing Beethoven Sonatas, a little lagged but very beautiful Brahms Sonatas,..) and this is not the best Ma CD's you can get. Money to spend on this CD set? By three other CD's by Ma, there are a LOT of cheaper and greater ones out there!

Amazon puts "Live" in the title of this disc, but a closer reading of the liner notes shows that some are live and some are not.... it's confusing and I wish the record companies would clearly label whether recordings are live or not on the OUTSIDE of the disc, so you can see it BEFORE you buy it, as many collectors prefer not to purchase live recordings.

In any event, I purchased this recording without knowing it was recorded live and I haven't been disappointed. The Haydn is played with that characteristic Ma reserve, but it works quite well for the piece, being from the Classic Era and all...

Saint-Saens and Schumann are surprisingly lively, although I generally prefer Rostropovich.

Of course, no one plays the Elgar better than Du Pre, so if you're looking for that, you should get the EMI recording of Du Pre/Barenboim b/w Janet Baker's Sea Songs instead of this.

And if you're looking for the Dvorak, the 1969 recording of Rostropovich/vonKarajan/BPO on DG takes the cake EVERY time. Don't waste your time on Ma's soulless, sanitized reading of this wonderfully romantic concerto. If you're up to it and you really want to hear someone pour their heart into Dvorak, try DuPre's late-60s recording on Angel (EMI) with Barenboim and Chicago. Tasty!

Yo Yo Ma never seems to dissapoint. His tone is incredibly clear and plays with poise and confidence that every musician should emulate. Yo Yo Ma's interpretation of all the concerti are first rate and some are even better. His Haydn in D leaves me speechless and his Dvorak is one of the best ever recorded. This is one of the best cd collections on the market. You should enjoy every moment of it.

The music on this CD is all of the highest quality. The music on the second disc, the Dvorak and Elgar, are the two high points in the cello concerto repertoire. Unlike some of the reviews have suggested, Ma's playing is top notch. In fact, I consider his Elgar to be a rival to Du Pre's. Previn's conducting in the Elgar is the best I have ever heard from him. Ma and Previn bring out the resignation and melancholy in a way that is sure to bring tears to your eyes. The Dvorak is also very good; like the Elgar it is a resigned and very moving piece. The other concertos are also very good, especially the Schumann, it is simply that the quality of the music cannot match the Dvorak, and certainly not the Elgar.

But if you want to buy these concertos, go with the albums they came from. The quality of the music is too good to buy simply a sampling of the music. Unless you cannot afford to buy the whole set, stick with the individual albums.

04:42 14-Mar-10
Review:
I needed this set for some work on a Libero.it Blog "L'estro e la pazzia" ["Artistic inspiration and madness", by Joey08], focussinng on Robert Schumann's lifelong diathesis for bipolar disorder. The cello concerto is supposed to be noteable in reflecting his lifelong mental problems in his works. I heard it first live in Rochester, NY by the Eastman-Rochester Philharmonic with Pablo Casals and Howard Hanson conducting. This performance is entirely different. It doesn't create the wierd and surrealistic world of the concerto like Casals, but emphasises Schumann's obbligato-ostinato style, which I never before fully appreciated in the piece quite credibly, making the concerto's idiosyncracies resemble more the Symphony No. 2 than the WoO violin concerto. Ma is technically at his usual perfectionism, and takes the piece VERY FAST, which tempo can be credible in the larger and symphonic works but generally not the concerti and chamber works, which the concerti often resemble. Perhaps I shall need a Casals for contrast. The other composers were exemplarily sane individuals, with the possible exception of Antonin Dvorak, who only seemed odd in his contradictory statements to the effect that the Symphony No. 9 in E contained many native American folk tunes versus other occasions on which he denied this vehemently, stating that it was exclusively Bohemian in derivation. Fortunately the cello concerto is purely Bohemian and preceeds his sojourn in the United States and position as Music Director of the New York Phiharmonic, which killed him and may have addled him a bit in the process. Ironically, Dvorak's successor in New York was Gustav Mahler, whom New York also killed, but Mahler may have suffered from preexisting conditions [or maybe not]; that is another story altogether.
JRM