I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK:  YO-YO-MA-Tiny Desk Concert #777 (August 17, 2018).

One needs to say very little to introduce Yo-Yo Ma, probably the most famous cellist in the world.  He is here because he has recorded Six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello by Johann Sebastian Bach.  Again.  For the third time.

Obsessed or awestruck, artists revisit great inspirations because they believe there is yet another story to tell – about life, about themselves.  Cellist Yo-Yo Ma brought his great inspiration, and in turn part of his own life story, to an enthusiastic audience packed around the Tiny Desk on a hot summer day. Ma is returning, yet again, to the Six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello by Johann Sebastian Bach, a Mount Everest for any cellist. He has just released Six Evolutions – Bach: Cello Suites, his third studio recording of the complete set and is taking the music on a two-year, six-continent tour. Ma’s first recording of the Suites, released in 1983, earned him his first Grammy.

Certainly one of the most brilliant cellists of modern times, he’s also a thoughtful, curious humanitarian, with an endless thirst to understand, celebrate, and connect disparate cultures of the world.

He plays three pieces from the Suites

J.S. Bach: “Prelude (from Suite No. 1 for Solo Cello)”  It is so beautiful and familiar, it sounds amazing on his cello.  he says “This was the very first piece of music I started on the cello… when I was 4 years old.  One measure a day.  It’s not painful to learn something incrementally.”  He describes how he recognized that the second measure was similar to the first and the third was just a variation.  He says, “I lived with this music for 58 years (plus 4, that’s my age).”

Ma has played the music for 58 years and along the way it’s become something of a practical guide to living, pulling him through hardships and celebrating times of joy. “It’s like forensic musicology,” Ma told the Tiny Desk audience. “Embedded in the way I play is actually, in many ways, everything I’ve experienced.”

J.S. Bach: “Sarabande (from Suite No. 6 for Solo Cello)”  The sarabande comes from many places.   All of these places have claimed it:  Guatemala, Mexico, Moorish Spain, via Portugal or Morocco.  He says the sarabande is the heart of the suites.

It has served dual purposes, Ma explained. “I’ve played this piece both at friends’ weddings, and unfortunately also at their memorial services.”

J.S. Bach: “Gigue (from Suite No. 3 for Solo Cello)”  He says for the last piece at the Tiny Desk, I’m going to play a tiny jig.  He says Bach goes from old dances to folk or popular dance.  Here is this German composer working a jog into the third suite.

The exuberant “Gigue,” from the Third Suite, with its toe-tapping beat, reminds us that Bach was far from a stuffed wig. Such is this sturdy, versatile and benevolent music, offering a full range of the human condition.

Ma is happy to teach the listeners what he is doing, to share the joy and love of music.  Sometimes literally

As soon as he arrived at our office to play, Ma unpacked his cello – a famed 1712 Stradivarius – and immediately handed it over, with his bow, and said, “Here play something.” It didn’t matter that I’d never held a cello. It was just another one of Yo-Yo Ma’s warm and welcoming gestures, another way to open up music to anyone and everyone.

It’s all beautiful!

[READ: August 27, 2018] “Ways and Means”

This story tackles sexual harassment at the workplace from an interesting angle (and is written in a great, fluid style that makes the story utterly compelling).

Hal (short for Haley-Ann, a name she always hated) is an engineer at a public radio station.  She was one of the first women to work in such a position and has been there for over a decade.  The story opens with her reading a public apology from an on-air personality, Oliver.  Oliver had worked at he station for over three decades and was a huge draw for both audience and pledges.

The apology went to everyone’s inbox and then went public.  She felt it was trite with words that he, Oliver, would never have said in real life like invalidated).

The accuser was unnamed but everyone in the building knew it was Molly, a 26-year-old podcast producer.

Two years earlier , Molly was an intern, working for “The Riff” Oliver’s show.  Hal had worked on “The Riff” for years but had recently decided it was time for a chance.

Molly was wide-eyed and pretty.  She bucked studio protocol and seemed to go where she liked rather than where she was invited.  But she was also very friendly and seemed to really enjoy the work, describing everything as fun–a word Hal would never use to describe her job or any job.  But Hal had noticed that in the last 15 years or so working at public radio had become an attractive career path, “drawing ambitious people with family safety nets and almost psychopathically charming personalities.”

The middle of the story is a wonderful look at radio, at minor celebrity, at power dynamics and who is impacted by them.  There’s an interesting aside about older, well-paid employees being pushed out for younger more affordable ones.  There’s even a cursory glance towards the younger generation: “They can’t fathom why we don’t all just die of our moral disease, kill ourselves and leave it all for them to make unsullied again.”  And it’s all written in a can’t-put-it-down style.

Hal and Oliver had had an affair as well.  This was a couple of years back.  Oliver was and is married and he and Hal were together for a short time and then ended it amicably–no hard feelings and certainly no lawsuits.

Hal wondered if she would hear from Oliver–she wasn’t going to call him.  And when he did finally call, he asked if they could meet.  A second accuser had come forward and he didn’t know who it was.  She realized soon enough that he wanted to know if it was her. She was vaguely insulted by this but he covered his tracks pretty well.

He was really freaked out.  He couldn’t get information about what was going on: “Under the informal complaint process, specific accusations are not required to be disclosed.  Only an accuser can raise the complaint to the formal level.”  He told Hal that he had eventually learned that Molly was complaining about the way he had leered at a ring she was wearing–he lingered too long while admiring it.

Oliver has his own theory as to why the station wants him gone, and he lays it all out for Hal.  He asks if she will vouch for him–potentially ruining her own career.

Hal is nobody’s fool and yet she also knows about loyalty.

I really enjoyed the way this played out and would love to read more.