The “concept” here seems to be nothing more ambitious than creating an album that is “pretty”–and so it is in a very superficial sense. However, beneath the tinsel and rhinestone surface some pretty ugly warts ruin much potential enjoyment. First, there’s the troublesome issue of transcription. All of these pieces were composed for piano (or orchestra) and violin, and they sound perfectly vile when played on the cello. The fact that both are stringed instruments might lure the unwary into thinking that there’s no significant difference. But if, say, a bassoon or euphonium were to take over the violin part the result would excite universal derision, and the bald fact is that what’s on offer here isn’t much better because the pitch relationship between melody and accompaniment is far more important musically speaking than the specific timbre of the solo instrument in question, assuming that overall balance of tone isn’t a major issue.
For example, take the famous finale of the Franck sonata. What the composer imagined as an angelic duet between tenor and soprano has here become a deviant musical act between a tenor and a baritone. The principal theme is a strict canon between violin and piano, and the violin’s higher pitch permits the necessary equality of volume and tone between the two players to be easily maintained without straining. The gruff sounds of the cello destroy the contrapuntal clarity of the passage, making nonsense of Franck’s elegant part-writing, and the matter is only made worse by Ma’s excessively forward balance, leaving Kathryn Stott to tinkle aimlessly in the background. Similarly, the theoretically ethereal Massenet Meditation sounds positively menopausal in this arrangement. Would anyone tolerate a performance of the complete opera in which soprano Renée Fleming were suddenly replaced in the role of the heroine by Bea Arthur (talented though she undoubtedly is)? So to with the Havanaise–that’s one hefty chiquita undulating across the dance floor.
The bottom line: there are real musical issues here that this team doesn’t begin to address, not the least of which (hinted at above) is the fact that Stott is much the lesser partner, and only in very rare passages (the second movement of the Franck, the scherzo of the Fauré) does she make a fleeting attempt to assert herself as an equal participant in the proceedings. And then there’s Ma. His playing displays a cloying sweetness and frequent preciousness in phrasing in, for example, the slow movement of the Fauré or the finale of the Franck, that really does lead us to question whether or not he truly cares about the music at all. The cute little dynamic swells, sudden drops to pianissimo, and other self-conscious ephemera of “interpretation” rapidly become tiresome and render the music shapeless. In louder passages, Ma’s midrange also takes on an unpleasant burr (probably a byproduct of the close miking). Hearing this performance of the Fauré, with its lumbering first three movements, it’s all but impossible to recall that the composer was taking his cues from Beethoven.
The cello arrangements of all of the works here save the Franck (which unfortunately has taken on a life of its own among cellists) are Ma’s own. Efforts such as these, placed alongside his forays into folk and “world” music, might give the false impression that he has “done it all” and needs to survey fresh horizons beyond what the classics have to offer. In fact, he hasn’t even come close. Staying with La Belle Époque alone, there are marvelous French cello sonatas by Fauré (2), Saint-Saëns (2), Magnard, Alkan, and numerous other composers of the period that Ma hasn’t even touched, and which (one would think) would offer far more musical rewards than these lame transcriptions. And so the final impression brings to mind another French masterpiece, Rameau’s Platée, in which an ugly swamp nymph believes herself to be beautiful enough to win the hand of the god Jupiter. It’s an illusion, or more to the point, a delusion. You can dress her up, but you can’t take her out.
