Yo-Yo Ma - Portrait of Yo-Yo Ma (1989)

This disc is sort of Yo-Yo's virtuoso collection. The CD is comprised largely of fairly mindless music, but at least Ma manages to make things interesting. Most of these works are played extremely well - his cello arrangement of the Dvorak-Kriesler "Songs my mother taught me" is stunning, and if the octaves (and a bit of other passagework) in the Paganani 24th caprice are out of tune, that track still serves as a tribute to his incredible technical skill. Still, some of this music (such as "The Swan") is too overplayed to be truly enjoyable at this point, and now that he has two separate sets of complete Bach Suites released (neither of which I'd recommend), the last thing anyone needs to hear is an early recording of the Bourrees from Suite 3.
The highlight is his Haydn D major concerto, which is given a simple treatment here, and it works. So crisp and clean is his playing that little else is required, from him or the orchestra, and the result is an incredibly refined performance.