Just In Case Anybody Else Needs This Today

October 11, 2023 10:04 AM

15 minutes of Yo-Yo Ma sitting by a river in the Great Smokey Mountains, playing Bach. That's it. That's the post.

Previously.

posted by yankeefog (25 comments total)

The local classical station has a show every day at 12:00 PM called Bach's lunch.

I have found it a great way to recognize Bach if not learn his works and related performances of his works.
posted by MonsieurPEB at 10:09 AM on October 11, 2023 [2 favorites]

Can you even imagine going for a hike and encountering this? I mean, talk about a transcendental moment.
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 10:22 AM on October 11, 2023 [7 favorites]

I needed this today. Thank you.
posted by kimberussell at 10:23 AM on October 11, 2023

I like that guy.
posted by scottatdrake at 10:24 AM on October 11, 2023 [4 favorites]

my brain reads Yo-Yo Ma and inserts a bear with a green pork pie hat (this is at least partly a covid brain thing today anyhow)

either way, this is a great thing for Wednesday. Thanks yankeefog
posted by elkevelvet at 10:25 AM on October 11, 2023 [2 favorites]

Can you even imagine going for a hike and encountering this? I mean, talk about a transcendental moment.

Sure beats my experience encountering art in the wilderness! A few miles all alone into a hike, a guy in a gorilla suit and bandanna ran across the trail about 30m ahead of me. I assumed hallucinogen flashback and kept walking. Then gorilla suit walked back across the path, paused briefly, and ran across in the same place again. OK, I was convinced at that point I was really seeing this. I wasn't sure he'd noticed me or if I was in danger. Then I walked much more slowly forward and spotted the camera crew of college kids. Didn't say a word, just gave a little wave and kept going,

I can't confirm if it was Yo-Yo Ma in the gorilla suit or not.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 10:33 AM on October 11, 2023 [5 favorites]

I heard Yo-Yo Ma speak along time ago. He had been at Juilliard but eventually got a BA in anthropology at Harvard. He was asked why… He said that he felt that to do music he had to have a much more broad education because music itself comes out of a broad range of human experience. His career and music shows this. Bach in the woods by a river is a good example.
posted by njohnson23 at 10:33 AM on October 11, 2023 [17 favorites]

Gosh! Thank you. Thank you.

I've got access to several recordings of this man playing this piece, and it's one of my favorites.

Of all of them, for some reason I like this version best. Wish I knew enough about music to be able to understand why.
posted by CHoldredge at 10:45 AM on October 11, 2023 [1 favorite]

Just heavenly, yankeefog. I did need this today. Thank you!
posted by mochapickle at 10:50 AM on October 11, 2023

JS Bach's music is one of the pinnacles of human creative genius. Beethoven is awe inspiring and dramatic, Mozart is endlessly glorious and melodic, but Bach - there is nothing quite like Bach. Even the slightest keyboard pieces or violin partitas contain some spark of genius, and the great masterworks like The Well-Tempered Clavier or the St Matthew Passion are monumental achievements. It is staggering to think a single human being created them.

One Bach piece I had never heard before this year, but would recommend to you all, is one of his earlier works, the organ partita "Sei gegrüßet, Jesu gütig" or "Hail To Thee, Kind Jesus." It is a chorale based on a Lutheran hymn with eleven variations, and it's incredible. Here is a link to the audio of a performance by Karl Richter. The majesty of what Bach does to this simple tune is unreal.
posted by fortitude25 at 10:54 AM on October 11, 2023 [11 favorites]

The look on his face, though, like he's hearing an old joke from an old friend.
posted by mhoye at 11:14 AM on October 11, 2023 [7 favorites]

Beautiful. Thanks!
posted by pt68 at 11:19 AM on October 11, 2023 [1 favorite]

Just gonna play this from memory by a creek in the woods no big deal.
posted by kirkaracha at 11:35 AM on October 11, 2023 [4 favorites]

Of course Yo-Yo Ma, who's been a professional cellist for decades, can play this suite from memory. But he did all that with a camera swooping around his head? How many takes did he need so he didn't break? (Also, what was that, a crane? A drone? Did they record audio in a studio and mix in the river sounds? I HAVE SO MANY PRACTICAL QUESTIONS).
posted by fedward at 12:23 PM on October 11, 2023 [2 favorites]

ugh these single-link YouTube p-oh! Who am I kidding, best of the web!
posted by k3ninho at 12:32 PM on October 11, 2023

The look on his face, though, like he's hearing an old joke from an old friend.

I read in that expression a great toleration of what must be quite annoying, this camera revolving around his face while he's trying to play.
posted by Rash at 1:15 PM on October 11, 2023 [1 favorite]

My headcannon is that this was not a special event. This was an ordinary Tuesday morning for Yo Yo Ma and somebody with a camera stumbled on him. Indeed, whenever you cannot otherwise account for Yo Yo Ma's location, he's in some unknown beautiful location, playing Bach. Right now it could be the rim of the Grand Canyon. Tomorrow at 3AM, it might be a small local park on the outskirts of Barcelona. Maybe he's sitting in your back garden at this very moment, under the slowly reddening oak tree, and you will never know unless you open your window and listen. But hurry! Wait too long, and he may already be on a pontoon next to the Great Barrier Reef, halfway through the Mass in B Minor.
posted by yankeefog at 1:39 PM on October 11, 2023 [18 favorites]

The week before last I had the opportunity to hear this piece performed in full in a local church by Zuill Bailey and it was a lovely experience, though I sometimes wonder if cellists get tired of the demand for it.

I think it was the first time I had sat down in a room full of people gathered for a musical performance since 2020 and that made it an extra special treat.

Like fedward, I have some curiosity about the setup for filming this video, but however they put it together it is nice thing to have. Though I am a little saddened to see Yo-Yo Ma showing signs of aging - he's one of those people that in my head I can only imagine remaining youthful and full of spirit and making music forever.
posted by Nerd of the North at 5:09 PM on October 11, 2023 [1 favorite]

Thank you for this.
posted by AMyNameIs at 5:35 PM on October 11, 2023

Thank you, this is lovely. But I really want to know how they mic'd this.
posted by Billy Rubin at 5:52 PM on October 11, 2023 [1 favorite]

My headcannon is that this was not a special event. This is the universe I want to live in, versus the one we got. *looks around*
posted by mollweide at 6:14 PM on October 11, 2023 [1 favorite]

Thank you yankeefog. I really did need this today.

I have seen Yo Yo Ma perform live. He makes his cello sing. He really is a delight.
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 6:31 PM on October 11, 2023

A local jewelry company uses the opening of this suite as their signature advertising soundtrack. So while I can't deny its genius, this is Yo-Yo Ma doing Diamonds International in a creek. Which is no less weird I guess than Yo-Yo Ma Doing College Movie as a Gorilla, really.
posted by Jilder at 9:27 PM on October 11, 2023 [1 favorite]

Beethoven is awe inspiring and dramatic, Mozart is endlessly glorious and melodic, but Bach - there is nothing quite like Bach.

On a whim in 1967 I bought an lp of Pablo Casals -- J. S. Bach: the 6 Unaccompanied Cello Suites in and was I blown away. His playing had such a harsh hard angular sound to my ears at the time and was not at all what I had expected.

Decades later I happened to be working at the Burke Museum where one night I happened to be working up by the dinosaurs and next to a cellist playing for some evening function.

When she took a break, I spoke to her and told her my reaction to Casal's version and she told me that his recordings of the Suites were considered revelation at the time and forever famous for that sound.

I got in trouble for talking to her that night because my supervisor hated me. Mostly because I talked easily with visitors of any age. Which was in my job description but go figure.

posted by y2karl at 10:05 PM on October 11, 2023 [3 favorites]

Worried about mosquitos in a location like that. Didn't he get swarmed? It was running water but I suspect still enough standing water to breed them. Worse, if he didn't swarmed what does that mean in terms of the biodensity of that environment??

Also concerned about the humidity and the instrument. Playing outside instead of somewhere climate controlled can be just awful. At least he was out of the sun. Direct sun is NOT good for a cello.
posted by Jane the Brown at 11:53 AM on October 12, 2023