AP News, September 19th, 2007
When Yo-Yo Ma plays, he likes to tell a story.
On Tuesday night, he told the story of Dvorak's Cello Concerto _ on his 1733 Montagnana. His song without words was performed on a flower-decked stage at Avery Fisher Hall before a sellout audience in a nationally televised concert that opened the New York Philharmonic's 166th season.
"I love playing the piece because it is such a rich piece of music _ rich narrative, rich story," the 51-year-old Ma said in an interview earlier this month with The Associated Press. "It's a piece that has a great story that can be told in an infinite number of ways."
The Czech composer, who completed the concerto in New York in 1895, did not write a program outlining a plot. But the music is filled with drama.
After a tentative introduction mixing anxiety and romance, a hero arrives. Later, there's a feeling of longing for love, then nostalgia after a loss, and finally a triumphant return home.
Although Ma has played the monumental work many times, he never tires of it.
"How can this be boring?" he asked during the interview. "It's where you are in life, where you are today. It's:
_ 'Please, please Daddy, tell me the story again!'
_ 'OK, how do you want it? Do you want to go to the dark side?'
_ 'No, no, no! I want it safe. No, no. Make it adventurous. Make it scary!'"
"It's as much as you want to put in, it'll give back," Ma said.
Ma put in the maximum at the concert, which was also watched on a giant video monitor by hundreds in Lincoln Center Plaza. He handled the difficult string crossings and broken chords with agility. His octave runs were effortless and precisely in tune.
Curiously, he chose to end phrases brusquely, and he often employed portamento _ a once-common schmaltzy technique in which the fingers slide into a note.
Despite only one rehearsal with the Philharmonic and conductor Lorin Maazel _ an open session that morning to a capacity audience _ soloist and orchestra communed with each other. While awaiting his entry, Ma smiled and looked around at the musicians. During an occasional lapse, the ever-vigilant Ma and Maazel made eye contact to restore the synchronization.
Ma's musicianship wasn't the only outstanding performance on the stage. In particular, the woodwinds, French horn and concertmaster Glenn Dicterow stood out in their solos.
Maazel, who is in his next-to-the-last season as Philharmonic music director, continues to strike an impressive demeanor on the podium. At 77, he still conducts vigorously and by memory. With his erect posture and clear baton strokes, he appears to be 20 years younger.
Also to his credit, Maazel programmed Dvorak's Seventh Symphony rather than the crowd-pleasing but overplayed "New World" Symphony for the gala audience that included Henry Kissinger, Dr. Ruth Westheimer and Yo-Yo Ma's mother. The seventh was a good companion to the concerto _ both are in minor keys and had many musical similarities that were interesting to hear side by side.
After "The Star-Spangled Banner," the program started with Dvorak's upbeat "Carnival."
So what goes through Ma's mind when he plays the Dvorak?
"I think of many parts of the story," he said. "I think of Dvorak's infinite variety of invention of rhythmic cells. ... I listen to how people play it, and how the orchestra plays it differently, how they're grouped differently, whether they're listening to one another, what the (conductor) is doing, how he or she is participating in the storytelling. ... And then I think where we are and what the occasion is, how I can participate once I understand where people are coming from ... how I can best tell that story that evening."
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