In his relentless quest to explore uncharted territories of cellodom, Yo-Yo Ma has delivered a recital for unaccompanied cello that–daringly–hasn’t any Bach. Instead, there are five works by as many composers, only two of which are truly successful as solo cello outings: Bright Sheng’s Seven Tunes Heard in China (a self-explanatory title if there ever was one) and Zoltan Kodaly’s justly famous Sonata for Solo Cello Op. 8. You’d be right to wonder how comfortable two such ethnically disparate works would fare on the same disc, but Ma seems to find solid points of connection. Both use the cello in much the same way, and the kind of pipa-like fingerslides that are appropriate to Sheng’s attractive, modal Chinese songs give an extra exoticism to Kodaly’s hyper-dramatic cello soliloquy. Whether that’s appropriate to the Kodaly piece is up for argument; but in the context of this disc–and Ma’s overall convincingly introspective manner–it makes a certain amount of sense. As for the other works, those who love Mark O’Connor’s Appalachia Waltz probably have it elsewhere and don’t need this solo cello version. Though the sincerity behind David Wilde’s The Cellist of Sarajevo and Alexander Tcherepnin’s Suite for Solo Cello hardly can be doubted, that doesn’t mean the pieces hold up on repeated hearing.
