Once fresh-faced new kids on the block, now more like a favourite uncle and aunt, Yo-Yo Ma and Kathryn Stott have been making sweet music together for 40 years. A cause for celebration, yes, but there was sadness in the air tonight too, as the British pianist has decided to hang up her hat as a performing musician. This handsomely curated programme was by way of her final hurrah.
At the heart of the matter were two of the great cello sonatas: Shostakovich’s neurasthenic outpouring from 1934 and Franck’s fully sanctioned arrangement of his hyper-romantic A major violin sonata from 1888. Both works demonstrated the performers’ instinctual and intimate way of working together, each tilted slightly back, their heads almost touching.
Ma’s burnished timbre brought an intense beauty to the Shostakovich, his effortless legato probing the Largo to bring out its feeling of infinite sorrow. Stott’s meaty tone and insistent rhythms drove the demonic Allegro, its sinister mood heightened by Ma’s skeletal glissandi. Urgent, and occasionally exuberant, this was classy playing of the highest order.
The Franck, too, was a thing of wonder, the musicians’ flexible approach calm and expansive, with plenty of firepower held in reserve. Stott, in particular, took no prisoners, executing some ferociously demanding leaps and runs. From brooding dales to sunny uplands, synchronicity and balance were immaculate, as was the palpable sense of unanimity of purpose.
There were bon bons to open, including Fauré’s Berceuse, tastefully understated. Ma’s phrasing was exquisite, Stott’s touch soft as a featherbed. A rapt account of Nadia Boulanger’s Cantique proved a fitting tribute to the great French pedagogue who was one of Stott’s first mentors as well as the teacher of Ma’s college professor (she also taught Aaron Copland, Philip Glass and Burt Bacharach).
Most remarkable was their playing of Arvo Pärt’s Spiegel im Spiegel. Barely rising above a pianissimo, Ma’s ethereal phrasing and Stott’s measured cascade of notes created a meditative bubble so fragile that no one dared applaud at the end for fear it might burst. A fitting tribute to one of classical music’s most enduring and endearing partnerships.
