Yo-Yo Ma returned to San Francisco Symphony’s Davies Symphony Hall on Tuesday night, and a full house of enraptured fans was there to welcome him back.
As those fans know, the great cellist has appeared in the Bay Area many times before — to perform solo works, chamber music, concertos and more.
This time, though, Ma was here with his longtime musical partner, pianist Kathryn Stott. The evening resonated with a poignant, unmistakable sense of an ending, with Stott having previously announced that she’ll retire from live performance at the end of this year.
Still, the prevailing mood was one of close collaboration, even celebration — of the power of music, and for these two artists’ extraordinary musical bond: a bond, Ma noted, that intersected through one teacher, Nadia Boulanger, who taught Stott at England’s Menuhin School, while Nadia’s student, Luise Vosgerchian, was Ma’s professor in college. Ma and Stott met in 1978, and since 1985, they have collaborated on musical projects that have taken them around the world.
Their roots run decidedly deep, and this program in Davies Hall was infused with meaning. It featured close-to-the-heart sonatas by Shostakovich and César Franck, along with works by Fauré, Dvorák, Boulanger, Sergio Assad and Arvo Pärt.
The evening opened with five short works, performed back-to-back, without a break, as a single composition: Fauré’s “Berceuse,” Dvorak’s Opus 55, No. 4 “Songs My Mother Taught Me,” Assad’s “Menino,” Boulanger’s “Cantique,” and Fauré’s “Papillon.” Ma and Stott powered through this unusual assemblage, tying these discrete works together like pearls on a long silk string. The effect was dazzling, and Ma paused to acknowledge their connection — what we’d just heard, he said, “is what Kathy and I have shared for four decades…with the creative spirit she’s brought.”
What followed was just as brilliant. Tearing into Shostakovich’s 1934 Cello Sonata in D minor, Ma and Stott captured the work’s lyricism as well as its anguished raucousness. The initial theme hearkens back to Romanticism, surprisingly light; the shift to a dirge, and the scherzo’s raucousness, were pronounced. The third movement Largo was especially moving: Ma’s long lines, punctuated by Stott’s singing chords, focused the drama. The finale yielded an urgent, headlong dance.
After intermission, the duo returned in a refreshed mood with Pärt’s meditative 1978 “Spiegel im Spiegel” (Mirror(s) in the Mirror). This quiet, reflective score, an example of the Estonian composer’s “tintinnabuli” technique, produces quiet, bell-like resonances. With images of galaxies, drawn from Webb and Hubble telescopes and projected on an overhead screen, Ma and Stott produced a stunning atmosphere of long-breathed tranquility.
The program closed with Franck’s 1886 Violin Sonata in A major. Composed as a wedding present from Franck to Eugène Ysaÿe, it’s a work of yearning romance, an abundance of temperament, lush, lyrical tone and elegant phrasing; in their gorgeous, masterful performance, Ma and Stott made it sing.
Two encores — Ernest Bloch’s “Prayer,” and Cesar Camargo Mariano’s “Cristal” — brought the evening to a close. As with the entire program, these short works were played so beautifully, it was hard to believe Ma and Stott’s partnership could ever end. We were so fortunate to have had it while it lasted.