Yo-Yo Ma, Ton Koopman, Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra - Vivaldi's Cello (2004)

There are people who buy everything Yo-Yo Ma releases, and that's a good thing: his incessant musical curiosity and his ability to carry his audience with him constitute a true bright spot in today's classical music scene. Fans of the two Simply Baroque discs Ma recorded with Ton Koopman and the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra will find much to like in Vivaldi's Cello, featuring the same musicians and offering several Vivaldi cello concertos plus Vivaldi works arranged for cello and ensemble by Koopman. Ma once again nicely adapts his warm, ebullient style to the quiet, gut-strung 1712 Stradivarius instrument (Jerry Seinfeld might call it a "low talker") he played on the earlier albums, and much of the music is both scintillating and unfamiliar. The only two chestnuts included are the Largo movement of the "Winter" Four Seasons concerto and a section of the Gloria, RV 589; the concertos rage and roil, and the disc ends effectively and prayerfully with a pair of slow opera arias. Nevertheless, Vivaldi's Cello leaves something to be desired as a Baroque disc. The problems lie not with Ma but with Koopman and the disc's engineers. Koopman's textures, striving for muscularity, verge on being too busy, and his continuo playing sometimes competes with Ma's cello rather than supporting it. Koopman claims that his arrangements have done nothing that wouldn't have been done in Vivaldi's time, and when it comes to reworking opera arias he's right -- but does any eighteenth century instruction manual contain outrageous harpsichord moves like the bizarre unpitched tremolo heard in a striking Mannheim Rocket-like figure 40 seconds into the very first track? And Koopman's harpsichord is miked so loud that it tends to drown Ma out. In all, Vivaldi's Cello is a cluttered canvas, even if one with sections of great beauty.