YO-YO Ma reveals passion, proficiency, artistry and more than a little chutzpah in presenting a full programme of accompanied cello music in three Asian capitals.
In fact, the Bangkok impresario was told he was too cheap to hire an accompanist. But a risk for some was no risk at all for Ma. The Cultural Centre was packed to the rafters; the cellist played his most unusual programme - two Bach suites, two works by contemporary American composers - and the audience simply would not let him go.
Part of the success, it is true, is the Yo-yo Ma personality. The smile, the easiness, even the humorous banter before Bright Sheng's composition, would have softened the heart of a Xinhua apparatchik.
The secret, though, is that Ma's own personality is imbued into every measure of his music. Whether the complexities of a Bach allemande or the diabolical finale of the George Crumb Sonata, this could only have been played by Ma.
Two allied trademarks of his work are the clarity and the melodies.
In the second movement of the Crumb piece, each variation was so clear that one could hear the pastoral theme below.
In that near-religious Sarabande from the Fifth Suite, the single cello line, with no harmonies, no extraneous colour, Ma virtually sculpted the notes into an architectural whole.
