Concert note.(Music)(Concert review)

Yo-Yo Ma, cello. Carnegie Hall, New York

The last decade or so has seen the American cellist Yo-Yo Ma turning in a widening gyre away from core classical repertoire and toward the less familiar airspace of World Music, a catchall that makes neighbors of rappers from Marseille and oud players from Lebanon. Ma's musical flights have taken him from Asia to Appalachia to Brazil and beyond, but for all his exploratory forays, J. S. Bach's Cello Suites have remained a staple of Ma's touring program. The Suites are Bach's only work for unaccompanied cello, a masterpiece companion to his sonatas and partitas for solo violin. Ma has recorded the Suites twice, once in 1983 and again in 1998 (the later recording included a DVD project of six accompanying films).

Certainly Ma's commitment to and knowledge of the Suites was never in question at Carnegie Hall, where two triangles of additional onstage seating behind the cellist gave a cathedral-like atmosphere to the proceedings and helped create intimacy in what can be a forbidding space for a solo performer. Ma notably eschewed turning up the volume on any pianissimo. Ma's quiet playing quieted the audience and intensified the performance; of course, it also infused the Suites with a vast dynamic range, which is always welcome. Of the six Suites, the cellist played the Third, Fifth, and Sixth, the latter two being Bach's most adventurous and offering the most moments for wizardry.

From the opening Prelude of the Third, Ma, who is known for his absolute sense of rhythm, established a strict adherence to time that was not without generous rubato. But in robbing time here and there, he never impeded the trajectory of the work, even when releasing certain phrases into space. The Allemande was also on the click, and the cellist enhanced the feeling of dance by adding weight to rhythms that already held natural emphasis from the form. The Courante was more free, and Ma put priority on articulation while he varied pressure on each string to create ...