Solo

First, the music. There's one masterpiece on the disc, the Kodaly solo cello sonata and four (much) lesser works. The Kodaly is a favourite piece of mine and is (in my unlearned opinion) the finest piece written for solo cello in the past 200 years.

The Sheng pieces have some interesting moments and could have been colourful, with its conjuring of oriental instruments and occasionally attractive harmonics. Tcherepnin's suite could also have been colourful, - the Gramophone reviewer referred to "a spicy charmer". It doesn't charm and it isnt spicy.

The two shorter fillers have even fewer moments of interest. The O'Connor Appalachian Waltz is meant to be soulful (I think) and contains some nice drone-sounds but is in no way a waltz, - at least I couldn't catch a 3/4 rhythm. The "Cellist of Sarajevo" is a picture of Vase Miskina's playing in memorium of those killed in the Sarajevo bread queue bombing, but I can't imagine that Miskina played only dirges on his cello.

The recording helps none of these pieces. I found it far too close, generating a quite uncomfortable and distracting level of background rumble in the O'Connor and an equally irritating close focus on Ma's flaring nostrils in the Kodaly. In some respects it's quite cleanly recorded and pizzicatos in particular are very real and sometimes stunning, but the closeness and relative dryness of the sound rob the instrument and the music (especially the O'Connor piece) of warmth and air. For a Sony DSD/SBM recording this is a huge disappointment, - and compares very unfavourably to the more musical treatment they give Murray Perahia's piano. I constantly felt that, rather than being in a small recital hall, my head was being held halfway between the bridge of Ma's instrument and the bridge of his nose (which supplements his cello with woodwind and percussive sounds aplenty).

The performance is even worse news. I didn't know the other works at all before hearing this disc but regularly felt short-changed. However, I do know the Kodaly well and have several other readings, not the least of which is an old LP of Janos Starker (on Saga) and a much more recent Delos CD by Starker, as well as two discs by other fine cellists (Michejew on Nimbus and Claret on Harmonia Mundi). The Starker is the benchmark not just for me but for reviewers far more professional than me (though the good CD Guide prefers the Maria Klegel version on Naxos, which I haven't heard). Ma comes nowhere close to either Kodaly or Starker.

The CD's booklet note refers to the sonata as being by turns "joyously soulful, astringent and darkly lyrical" and it is, but not in this performance. Ma's emphasis is on dynamic extremes, portamento and the highlighting of passing notes, on giving a virtuoso performance that I find superficial, self-regarding and self-conscious (so in that regard its a good match for some of the other music as well as the recorded sound). He skates across the surface of the sonata, exploring extremes here and detail there, without ever exploring the music's heart and soul. The Gramophone reviewer put it very well when he wrote that Ma is "patronizing the music rather than penetrating its spiritual core". I just wish I'd found the review before I bought the disc, rather than after.

What a shame, - Ma used to be a musician rather than merely a virtuoso with pretensions, and I can remember a time when his recordings weren't accompanied by four or five narcissistic photos of the great man (which in this instance take up 5 out of 11 cover and booklet panels compared to the four and a half given over to the music) looking by turns profound, quizzical, surreal and self satisfied. And DSD doesn't have to be about dry, over-close and in-your face sound, and the Kodaly is a great piece deserving of better than this and even the other pieces, slight as they are, probably have a little more to offer than here.

Save your money. I'm going to recoup a fraction of mine by selling this disc immediately.

First, the music. There's one masterpiece on the disc, the Kodaly solo cello sonata and four (much) lesser works. The Kodaly is a favourite piece of mine and is the finest piece written for solo cello in the past 200 years.

The Sheng pieces have some interesting moments and could have been colourful, with its conjuring of oriental instruments and occasionally attractive harmonics. Tcherepnin's suite could also have been colourful, - the Gramophone reviewer referred to "a spicy charmer".

The two shorter fillers have fewer moments of interest. The O'Connor Appalachian Waltz is meant to be soulful (I think) and contains some nice drone-sounds but is in no way a waltz, - at least I couldn't catch a 3/4 rhythm. The "Cellist of Sarajevo" is a picture of Vase Miskina's playing in memorium of those killed in the Sarajevo bread queue bombing, but I can't imagine that Miskina played only dirges on his cello.

The recording helps none of these pieces. I found it far too close, generating a quite uncomfortable and distracting level of background rumble in the O'Connor and an equally irritating close focus on Ma's flaring nostrils in the Kodaly. In some respects it's quite cleanly recorded and pizzicatos in particular are very real and sometimes stunning, but the closeness and relative dryness of the sound rob the instrument and the music (especially the O'Connor piece) of warmth and air. For a Sony DSD/SBM recording this is a huge disappointment, - and compares very unfavourably to the more musical treatment they give Murray Perahia's piano. I constantly felt that, rather than being in a small recital hall, my head was being held halfway between the bridge of Ma's instrument and the bridge of his nose (which supplements his cello with woodwind and percussive sounds aplenty).

The performance is even worse news. I didn't know the other works at all before hearing this disc but regularly felt short-changed. However, I do know the Kodaly well and have several other readings, not the least of which is an old LP of Janos Starker (on Saga) and a much more recent Delos CD by Starker, as well as two discs by other fine cellists (Michejew on Nimbus and Claret on Harmonia Mundi). The Starker is the benchmark not just for me but for reviewers far more professional than me (though the good CD Guide prefers the Maria Klegel version on Naxos, which I haven't heard). Ma comes nowhere close to either Kodaly or Starker.

The booklet note refers to the sonata as being by turns "joyously soulful, astringent and darkly lyrical" and it is, but not in this performance. Ma's emphasis is on dynamic extremes, portamento and the highlighting of passing notes, on giving a virtuoso performance that I find superficial, self-regarding and self-conscious (so in that regard its a good match for some of the other music as well as the recorded sound). He skates across the surface of the sonata, exploring extremes here and detail there, without ever exploring the music's heart and soul. The Gramophone reviewer put it very well when he wrote that Ma is "patronizing the music rather than penetrating its spiritual core". I just wish I'd found the review before I bought the disc, rather than after.

What a shame, - Ma used to be a musician rather than merely a virtuoso with pretensions, and I can remember a time when his recordings weren't accompanied by four or five narcissistic photos of the great man (which in this instance take up 5 out of 11 cover and booklet panels compared to the four and a half given over to the music) looking by turns profound, quizzical, surreal and self satisfied. And DSD and SACD don't have to be about dry, over-close and in-your face sound, and the Kodaly is a great piece deserving of better than this and even the other pieces, slight as they are, probably have a little more to offer than here.

Save your money. I'm going to recoup a fraction of mine by selling this disc immediately.

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