“Simply Baroque” / Yo-Yo Ma, Ton Koopman

A meaningful title. In 1998, Yo-Yo Ma recorded the two-disc series “Simply Baroque” with Ton Koopman. What is particularly noteworthy is that for this recording, he restored his own Stradivari cello to baroque specifications and played it with a baroque bow. With this recording, Ma made a “concession” to “HIP”. However, it was only a temporary concession, and he has not made such recordings since. The first thing you notice when listening to this CD is that most of the programs are “arrangements (mainly Bach’s arias)”. This may be “disappointing” for some people, and “delighting” for others. I myself am the former, but I would like to say that this in no way diminishes the value of this CD. When a master of modern cello and a master of early music come face to face, a program like this may be inevitable. And it is easy to understand in terms of its “market strategy”. For example, what if there had been even one Vivaldi cello sonata in this program? Talking about me, I would have been “disillusioned”. However In this series, Ma has performed a total of four Boccherini concertos, and I think that exactly this is the repertoire in which he showed his “true value”.

P.S.: After listening to the aria of the Goldberg Variations, I became to want to hear all the rest of it. I am wondering if the full recording of the piece would be realized sometime. #baroque #bach #yo-yo-ma #片山俊幸