Song Exploder

Yo-Yo Ma - Prelude, Cello Suite No.1 in G Major

Special Episode

Hrishikesh: You’re listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs and

piece by piece tell the story of how they were made. My name is Hrishikesh

Hirway.

Yo-Yo Ma: My name's Yo-Yo Ma. The Prelude came into my life when I was four years old. It

was literally the first piece of music I learned. I think I've performed the Prelude

100 times maybe, more. And 58 years later, I'm still learning from it.

year, Yo-Yo Ma is going to break down this piece - which he didn’t create, but

he’s performed so many times. It’s the Prelude from Johann Sebastian Bach’s

Cello Suite Number 1 in G Major. It’s one of the most famous pieces of music

written for the cello. Yo-Yo Ma first recorded the Bach Cello Suites in 1983, at

age 27. He recorded them again in 1998, and now, at age 62, he’s recorded

them for what he says might be the last time. It’s for an album called Six

Evolutions: Bach Cello Suites. Yo-Yo Ma spoke to me about what’s changed

over the years about the way he approaches this piece of music. But first, a little

history. For that, I turn to author Eric Siblin, who wrote an award-winning book

on the history of Bach’s cello suites.

Hrishikesh: In the early 18th century, there wasn’t a lot of music written for solo cello.

Eric: It was very much a background instrument, sort of plodding in the background

like an unadventurous bass line for the most part. So for Bach to write solo

music for the cello was super radical at the time.

(Cello)

Hrishikesh: Bach died in 1750. He’d been a successful composer, but not massively famous

during his own lifetime.

Eric: He was respected in many circles, essentially musical circles. You know, a

musician's musician he was.

Hrishikesh: And he hadn’t made any plans to preserve his own work. It wasn’t until decades

after his death that his music started to become popular.

Eric: He bought the music, he took it home, and immediately started to tackle it. And

this was something that wasn't easy because unlike cellists today he didn't have

umpteen recordings of the Cello Suites. He didn't have teachers who could

show him how to play it. He had nothing but these notes on paper. And the way

Bach wrote notes on paper wasn't the way say, Beethoven or many later

composers wrote music. Namely, he left out a lot of instructions, suggestions of

dynamics, do you play it loud or softer, etc. So it was in some ways very much

up to the performer. The music’s a bit like an inkblot test and that makes it fun

and exciting. It's like there's no original. There's only cover versions of the Cello

Suites. Now Casals became the greatest cellist of his time. So he went a long

Hrishikesh: When I interviewed Yo-Yo Ma, I played this for him. I was wondering, do you

saying, “Okay, Bach’s suites, these are they.” What I get from listening to that is

a sculptural approach, you know, you can hear him sort of tapping his fingers

onto the fingerboard. You know, it’s like, dah, dah, dah, it's very tactile, it's very

physical. And you know, he's carving out notes and this is what I grew up with. I

haven’t heard these in years so it’s really incredible to have a chance to hear it.

(Pablo Casals’ recording of the Cello Suites)

Hrishikesh: Who introduced this piece of music to you?

(Music fades out)

Yo-Yo Ma: My father. He loved Bach. He was in Paris during the Second World War. And

would learn the Bach sonatas

Yo-Yo Ma: and partitas for violin by heart. And then at night, because you can't do anything

else, he played the music.

(Violin)

(Violin fades)

Hrishikesh: So you started playing the cello and this music when you were 4 years old? You

must have had to play like a quarter size cello.

Yo-Yo Ma: I had a sixteenth size cello.

Hrishikesh: [Laughter] That’s just too cute.

(Cello Suites intro)

Yo-Yo Ma: these are open strings and you put one finger down

Yo-Yo Ma: and then again open string.

(Cello)

(Cello ends)

the next day, you use two fingers. That’s day 2 and so on and so forth. So it’s

Hrishikesh: I'm going to play the first version that you recorded of this in 1983. How does it

sound to you now?

(Yo-Yo Ma’s 1983 recording of the Cello Suites)

Yo-Yo Ma: Very good cello playing, the notes are very even. You know, everything is just

very measured. Very confident. Yeah, good cellist.

Hrishikesh: [Laughter] It feels like a backhanded compliment, a little bit.

Yo-Yo Ma: [Laughter] Well you know, it’s good playing. But I try and do forensic musical

person likes to make things look good, right? But this music, it starts your

(Yo-Yo Ma’s 1983 recording of the Cello Suites)

Yo-Yo Ma: Has that person thought about that great interruption? Does that person hear

the pedal point that's in there? I'd say, maybe subliminally a little bit but not

stop, no silence, no silence, let’s go.

(Music fades)

Yo-Yo Ma: So you get someone's priorities when you listen, and you always get someone’s

happened.

Hrishikesh: Okay I want to play that same spot, the moment where there’s that break in your

version?

Yo-Yo Ma: There’s more attention to changing landscape. There's less emphasis on saying,

“Let's make a beautiful sound,” and there's different kinds of texture. There's

greater fragility. There’s more attention to the bits of landscape that says, “Hmm,

wait, look at that. Check that out.” So what does all this mean? Like a great

book that you read several times during your life, each time you read it, it's the

same book but you certainly get very, very different material from the same

stories. “Oh, I didn't see that. I didn't notice that before. What is that?” So

there's an evolutionary process.

(Yo-Yo Ma’s 2018 recording of the Cello Suites)

(Music fades)

from being sensitized to these changes and digest them and make sure that you

are always giving your full self to whatever you're doing, which means that any

experience that you’ve had has to be somehow revealed in the process of

making music. And I think that almost forces you to make yourself vulnerable to

(Yo-Yo Ma’s 2018 recording of the Cello Suites)

Yo-Yo Ma: I'm not trying to prove anything other than this is the best I can do. I make

mistakes, but it’s like that vulnerability to say, “You know I accept I am not

written for my instrument.

(Recording ends)

1 in G Major,” by Johann Sebastian Bach, in its entirety.

Hrishikesh: Visit songexploder.net to learn more about Yo-Yo Ma and the Bach Cello Suites.

You’ll find a link to buy or stream the music, and a link to buy Eric Siblin’s book:

The Cello Suites: J.S. Bach, Pablo Casals and the Search for a Baroque

My thanks to a few people who helped with notes on this episode. Alison

MacAdam, Julie Shapiro, David Weinberg, Helen Zaltzman, and Christian Koons.

Production assistance by Nick Song. Carlos Lerma creates original illustrations

for every episode of Song Exploder, which you can see on the Song Exploder

PRX, a collective of fiercely independent podcasts. You can learn about all of our

Instagram, and Twitter @SongExploder. My name is Hrishikesh Hirway. Until next