Yo-Yo Ma - Six Evolutions - Bach: Cello Suites (2018) [Hi-Res]

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. "Bach's Cello Suites have been my constant musical companions," Ma writes of the music. "For almost six decades, they have given me sustenance, comfort and joy during times of stress, celebration and loss. What power does this music possess that even today, after three hundred years, it continues to help us navigate through troubled times?" Ma is more convinced than ever of the suites ability to create shared meaning that extends far beyond the here and now. The suites collective vision at once divergent and coherent, empathic and objective reminds us of all that connects us despite an increasingly discordant public conversation.

Bach’s Cello Suites have been my constant musical companions. For almost six decades, they have given me sustenance, comfort, and joy during times of stress, celebration, and loss. What power does this music possess that even today, after three hundred years, it continues to help us navigate through troubled times? Now that I’m in my sixties, I realize that my sense of time has changed, both in life and in music, at once expanded and compressed. Music, like all of culture, helps us to understand our environment, each other, and ourselves. Culture helps us to imagine a better future. Culture helps turn ‘them’ into ‘us.’ And these things have never been more important.” (Yo-Yo Ma)

"Almost no one made a sound. Almost no one moved. When a large audience is listening intently, it creates an atmosphere that cannot be measured or recorded, only remembered. Here, it was as if music had stilled the world ... he was following his natural musical rhythms, to the point that it felt less like a performance than like an interior monologue ... [The audience] was under the spell of a solitary searcher in the dark." (Alex Ross, The New Yorker)

Yo-Yo Ma, cello