SACD / DSD

Yo-Yo Ma – Soul Of The Tango: The Music of Astor Piazzolla (1997) [Japanese Reissue 2003]
PS3 Rip | ISO | SACD DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 63:41 minutes | Scans included | 2,56 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans included | 1,21 GB

Yo-Yo Ma might seem like an unlikely protagonist for the tango, but this intrepid musical explorer has taken his task seriously, collaborating with experienced tango musicians. Ma even participates in a posthumous collaboration with one 1987 Piazzolla recording. Furthermore, while he’s obviously the headliner here, he doesn’t dominate the arrangements nearly as much as he does the billing and photography of the disc. While the result isn’t your essential Piazzolla album (that would have to include more of the composer’s own playing), it’s an atmospheric and convincing collection, perhaps a good introduction for those who don’t know the music.

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Yo-Yo Ma – Solo (1999)
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DST64 2.0 >1-bit/2.8224 MHz | Digital Booklet | 2.63 GB 
FLAC tracks 2.0 24bit/88.2 kHz | Digital Booklet | 1.17 GB 

Bach showed that the cello can dance, but composers from Rossini to Shostakovich have favored it as an instrument of pensive reflection and brooding melancholy. The playful cover photo notwithstanding, SOLO features Yo-Yo Ma in five 20th century cello works of a serious nature, all with folk influence and all echoing at least a bit of the troubles of the times in which they were written.

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Yo-Yo Ma – Plays The Music Of John Williams (2002)
SACD Rip | SACD ISO | DST64 2.0 & 5.1 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 66:33 minutes | Scans included (PDF) | 4,01 GB
or FLAC 2.0 Stereo (converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/96 kHz | Scans included (PDF) | 1,35 GB
Features Stereo and Multichannel Surround Sound

Yo-Yo Ma Plays the Music of John Williams is a 2002 album of John Williams compositions performed by Yo-Yo Ma and the Recording Arts Orchestra of Los Angeles. The album was recorded on April 4–6, 2001 at the Sony Pictures Studios, Culver City, California.

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Yo-Yo Ma – Portrait Of Yo-Yo Ma (1989) [Reissue 2016]
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 65:57 minutes | Scans NOT included | 2,64 GB
or FLAC 2.0 (converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/48 kHz | Front, Scans NOT included | 635 MB
Sony Music Hong Kong (SACD Reissue)

This disc is sort of Yo-Yo’s virtuoso collection. The album is comprised largely of fairly mindless music, but at least Ma manages to make things interesting. Most of these works are played extremely well – his cello arrangement of the Dvorak-Kriesler “Songs my mother taught me” is stunning, and if the octaves (and a bit of other passagework) in the Paganani 24th caprice are out of tune, that track still serves as a tribute to his incredible technical skill. Still, some of this music (such as “The Swan”) is too overplayed to be truly enjoyable at this point, and now that he has two separate sets of complete Bach Suites released (neither of which I’d recommend), the last thing anyone needs to hear is an early recording of the Bourrees from Suite 3. The highlight is his Haydn D major concerto, which is given a simple treatment here, and it works. So crisp and clean is his playing that little else is required, from him or the orchestra, and the result is an incredibly refined performance.

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Yo-Yo Ma – Japanese Melodies (1984) [Reissue 2016]
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 41:22 minutes | Scans included | 1,66 GB
or FLAC 2.0 (converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/48 kHz | Full Scans included | 445 MB
Sony Music Hong Kong (SACD Reissue)

Yo-Yo Ma’s multi-faceted career is testament to his continual search for new ways to communicate with audiences, and to his personal desire for artistic growth and renewal. Whether performing new or familiar works from the cello repertoire, coming together with colleagues for chamber music or exploring cultures and musical forms outside the Western classical tradition, Mr. Ma strives to find connections that stimulate the imagination. Very Japanese release. Traditional instruments along with Yo-Yo Ma, lovely to just let play in the background.

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Yo-Yo Ma – Classic Yo-Yo Ma (2001) [Reissue 2016]
SACD Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 69:27 minutes | Scans NOT included | 2,78 GB
or FLAC 2.0 (converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/48 kHz | Front, Scans NOT included | 694 MB
Sony Music Hong Kong (SACD Reissue)

Classic Yo-Yo is a greatest-hits collection for the famous Yo-Yo Ma, something he’s fully entitled to after two decades of runaway success. It’s “Classic Yo-Yo” in the sense that it presents well-loved and presumably durable selections from a variety of Yo-Yo Ma albums, not because it inclines toward Ma’s straight-ahead classical recordings. In fact the division between classical and crossover pieces on the disc is about 50/50, and they tend to alternate. The transition from Bach to Astor Piazzolla works OK, but that from Appalachian Journey mastermind Edgar Meyer to Brahms might be a bit jarring. A greatest-hits album is a tough item for Ma because his recordings are so different from one another and involve such a variety of other musicians. As Ma himself says in an interview included in the liner material, “Collaboration is the best part of what I do, it’s what I enjoy most about being a musician”.

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Yo-Yo Ma – Obrigado Brazil (2003)
SACD Rip | SACD ISO | DST64 2.0 & 5.1 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 71:46 minutes | Scans included (PDF) | 4,04 GB
or FLAC 2.0 Stereo (converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/48 kHz | Scans included (PDF) | 790 MB
Features Stereo and Multichannel Surround Sound

Yo-Yo Ma, one of the best-known classical cellists of the recording era, whose crossover releases have spanned the world, bluegrass, and soundtrack charts. In this context “obrigado” means “thank you” in Portuguese.

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