It's all about the classical music composers and their works from the last 400 years and much more about music. Hier erfahren Sie alles über die klassischen Komponisten und ihre Meisterwerke der letzten vierhundert Jahre und vieles mehr über Klassische Musik.
Español: Concierto para violín, chelo y piano en Do mayor, Op. 56
1st Movement (Allegro) 0:53
2nd Movement (Largo (atacca)) 19:00
3rd Movement (Rondo alla Polacca) 24:10
Work: Concerto for Violin, Cello, and Piano in C major, Op. 56
Composer: Ludwig van Beethoven
Orchestra: Israel Philharmonic Orchestra
Violinist: Giora Schmidt
Cellist: Zuill Bailey
Pianist: Navah Perlman
Conductor: Itzhak Perlman
Place: Mann Auditorium, Tel Aviv
Cello prodigy Yo-Yo Ma plays for President J.F. Kennedy. Picture: The Kennedy Center/YouTube
By Maddy Shaw Roberts, ClassicFM London
In 1962, Yo-Yo Ma played for President J.F. Kennedy, and the world heard his playing for the first time.
Here’s the moment a late great of the music world introduced a young star onto the stage, with little idea of the beloved, cultural figurehead he would become.
In a video published by The Kennedy Center, American conductor and TV host for the evening, Leonard Bernstein introduces seven-year-old cellist Yo-Yo Ma and his 11-year-old sister Yeou-Cheng Ma, to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Dwight D. Eisenhower during An American Pageant of the Arts in November 1962.
The purpose of the telecast was to raise funds for the National Cultural Center, which was founded under Eisenhower’s administration and nurtured under Kennedy’s.
A smattering of applause is heard as the young sibling duo walk to centre stage, bow and take their seats.
Remarkably playing the entire thing from memory, Ma performs the first movement of French composer Jean-Baptiste Bréval’s Concertino No. 3 in A Major, in a piano-cello duet with his sister. Even as a child, Ma’s performances were imbued with a sense of peace and togetherness (watch below).
Introducing Ma, Bernstein celebrates the “double stream of art… flowing into and out of America”.
The great Mahler champion and West Side Story composer uses his speech to highlight “the attraction of our country to foreign artists, and scientists and thinkers, who have come not only to visit us, but often to join us as Americans, to become citizens of what to some has historically been the land of opportunity and to others the land of freedom.
“And in this great tradition, there has come to us, this year, a young man aged seven, bearing the name Yo-Yo Ma,” Bernstein continues.
Born in Paris, Ma was bathed in music from a young age – his mother, Marina Lu, a singer, and his father, Hiao-Tsiun Ma, a violinist and professor of music at Nanjing National Central University.
Ma took up the violin, piano and viola from very young, but settled on cello aged four. From the age of five, he was already performing before audiences in France.
Two years later, Ma and his family moved to the United States. And this, it appears, was the first time Ma was seen on television after cellist Pablo Casals – who was also on the bill that night – brought the young star to the organisers’ attention.
Leonard Bernstein introduces seven-year-old Yo-Yo Ma. Picture: The Kennedy Center/YouTube
“Now, here’s a cultural image for you to ponder as you listen,” Bernstein continues. “A seven-year-old Chinese cellist, playing old French music, for his new American compatriots.
“Welcome Yo-Yo Ma, and Yeou-Cheng Ma.”
And so, a cultural icon was born. With 18 Grammy Awards under his belt, Ma is arguably the world’s most celebrated classical cellist and has recorded music from American bluegrass to traditional Chinese melodies. A United Nations Messenger of Peace, Ma has also become a humanitarian icon and champion for the power of music in healing.
Yo-Yo’s sister, now Dr. Yeou-Cheng Ma, has often collaborated with her brother and had great success on the world stage as a child, playing with the Denver Symphony Orchestra at age 10. Now, she enriches young musical talent as the executive director of the Children’s Orchestra Society in New York.
Exactly a year after Ma and his sister’s performance, and two months after President Kennedy’s assassination in November 1963, new legislation was signed into law renaming the National Cultural Center as a “living memorial” to John F. Kennedy.
Now, let’s all take a moment to remember the time Ma wrote to Bernstein, aged 10, asking if he would like to hear him play again:
How could the answer have been anything but “yes”...
This multi-screen Vivaldi double concerto is exactly what the internet was invented for
27 March 2017, 09:23
By Amy MacKenzie
0
The powers of the internet have struck again - this time, bringing together a YouTuber and an international superstar.
ThatCelloGuy, otherwise known as Cremaine Booker, uploads multitrack videos of himself playing the cello, performs with orchestras in the southeast of America and also works as a studio cellist. Tina Guo, from China, is an internationally acclaimed and Grammy-nominated virtuoso acoustic/electric cellist, recording artist, and composer.
Despite having never met, these two talented musicians have been brought together by the internet and the music community to create a brilliant collaboration video of Vivaldi's Double Cello Concerto.
On his YouTube channel, Cremaine said:
"It's not everyday that you get to play with a superstar! It was a lot of fun to collaborate with the amazing Tina Guo. Not only is she an AMAZING musician, but she's a great human being!"
And his followers loved the video as much as we did! One of the comments even said:
"It was this video that inspired me to learn cello at age 39! I'm having fun now scaring the cats! Lol, I will get it!"
Check out the video below and also take a look at both ThatCelloGuy and Tina Guo's pages for many more brilliant videos - all the details below:
Vivaldi's Double Cello Concerto - Cremaine Booker & Tina Guo
Cellists, we feel your pain. But not enough to help when you're
stuck in the ticket barriers at the station. Here are the worst things
about being you...
1. Even the case is a joke
"No, there's not a bomb in there. No it's not a guitar. Yes, I do wish I'd taken up the flute."
2. Pachelbel has it in for you
Doesn't matter how many grade exams you've passed, these eight
little notes played over and over again are the only ones you'll need.
Better start tuning those low F sharps now.
3. Transport
Does it fit in your Fiat Punto? Of course it doesn't. And good luck
trying to get it through the ticket barriers on the train. Not to worry,
there's bound to be a way to get such a dainty instrument from A to
B...
Don't even get us started on trying to bring the thing on a plane.
Yes, you will have to buy a seat for it. No, you can't claim extra gin
'for your cello'.
5. Your instrument will almost certainly maim you
If wasn't hard enough trying to fly with the enormous chunk of
carved wood, try explaining the lethal 9-inch metal spike you're forced
to carry around at all times. Which, incidentally, will ruin all your
laminate flooring, make millions of tiny holes in your carpets, and slip
on every conceivable concert stage. Good luck with that.
You can be as careful as you like, but you'll somehow always manage to smear sticky white rosin all over your miniskirtshorts regulation black concert trousers. There's only one way round it:
7. Thumb position
Take up the cello, they said. It doesn't sound scratchy like a
violin, they said. Until, of course, you get really good and you have to
start playing actual notes with your THUMBS.
Congratulations! You've graduated from Pachelbel's
Canon and you're finally a fully-fledged cello-playing genius. Now
prepare yourself for humiliation and defeat as you fall off the
fingerboard during recitals.
It's pretty much 100% guaranteed that your C string WILL snap in your
face/lacerate your arms/take your eye out while you're sitting on stage
in front of everyone. Just be thankful you don't play the double bass.
