Yo-Yo Ma (cello)
Sony · 19075854652 · 2 hours 13 minutes
Bach’s cello suites have this uncanny ability to feel both architecturally precise and deeply human at the same time, and Yo-Yo Ma leans right into that tension on his third recorded traversal of the set. His dynamic shaping here is extraordinarily fine-grained — tiny shifts in weight and pace that feel less like interpretive decisions and more like breathing. The lilting rhythmic energy he brings to the dance movements is genuinely infectious, the kind of playing that makes a sarabande feel inevitable rather than studied.
Awards:
- Presto Recording of the Week — 17th August 2018
- Gramophone Magazine — Awards Issue 2018 — Editor’s Choice
- Presto Recordings of the Year — Finalist 2018
- Limelight Magazine Recordings of the Year — 2018 — Nominated – Instrumental
“By now, Ma’s wings are fully grown. His capacity for soaring seems limitless, his ability to minutely alter dynamics and tempos at the least prompting and the joy of his lilting rhythms are…”
— Gramophone Magazine, Awards Issue 2018
Emanuel Ax (piano), Leonidas Kavakos (violin), Yo-Yo Ma (cello)
Sony · 19658881642 · 74 minutes
There’s something quietly thrilling about hearing Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony reimagined for just three players — the orchestral sweep compressed into something intimate and almost confessional, where every melodic line has nowhere to hide. Ax, Kavakos, and Ma bring decades of shared chemistry to these arrangements, and you can hear them listening to each other with the kind of attentiveness that only comes from deep mutual trust. The pairing with the Archduke Trio makes perfect sense too, reminding you that Beethoven’s piano trio writing and his symphonic thinking were always in conversation.
Awards:
- Gramophone Magazine — April 2024 — Editor’s Choice
- Opus Klassik Awards — 2024 — Nominated – Chamber Music Recording of the Year
- Grammy Awards — 67th Awards (2025) — Nominated – Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance
- Sunday Times — 20 Best Classical Albums of 2024
“The more you explore this arrangement, the more you appreciate the way Wosner respects the original without being hemmed in by it.”
— Gramophone Magazine, April 2024
Yo-Yo Ma (cello), Yo-Yo Ma (alto violin)Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, David Zinman
Sony · 88697561082 · 77 minutes
Yo-Yo Ma’s embrace of American modernism here feels like a genuine love affair rather than a duty call — the program brings together works by John Corigliano, David Fanshawe, Stephen Albert, and Richard Danielpour, composers who were all pushing the cello into new emotional territory in the late 20th century. His sound on the Albert Cello Concerto especially has this aching, searching quality that makes you feel like the instrument is actually thinking out loud. The Grammy wins for both performance and composition back in 1994 were well-earned, and the recording still sounds alive and hungry today.
Awards:
- Grammy Awards — 37th Awards (1994) — Best Classical Instrumental Solo Recording
- Grammy Awards — 37th Awards (1994) — Best Contemporary Classical Composition
Abel Selaocoe (cello)
Warner Classics · 9029622433 · 55 minutes
Abel Selaocoe treats the cello less like a classical instrument and more like a living, breathing voice — one that can chant, wail, groove, and soar within the same phrase. Where is Home / Hae Ke Kae draws on South African musical traditions, West African rhythms, and Western classical technique in a way that feels completely organic rather than assembled. The whole album pulses with that sense of song BBC Music Magazine picked up on, where every note seems to originate from somewhere deep and human rather than from a practice room.
Awards:
- Songlines — Top of the World — November 2022
- BBC Music Magazine — November 2022 — Chamber Choice
- Presto Editor’s Choice — September 2022
- Presto Recordings of the Year — Finalist 2022
“Selaocoe inhabits a captivating sphere of spontaneous, mercurial creativity…In Selaocoe’s hands the cello is a shape-shifter…Song is the dominant form: everything flows from his own extraordinary…”
— BBC Music Magazine, November 2022,4 out of 5 stars(Performance) /5 out of 5 stars(Recording)
Yo-Yo Ma (cello)
Sony · 88697344802 · 79 minutes
There’s something genuinely disarming about the way Yo-Yo Ma treats a Christmas and folk collection — he brings the same warmth and total commitment to a simple melody that he gives to a Dvorak concerto, and you feel it immediately. The guest roster here is stacked (James Taylor, Alison Krauss, Diana Krall, among others), but Ma’s cello is the emotional spine of the whole thing, threading through each track with an intimacy that keeps the album from ever tipping into seasonal schmaltz. The Grammy win for Best Classical Crossover feels earned — this one actually earns the “crossover” label by letting the music breathe on its own terms rather than forcing a genre collision.
Awards:
- Grammy Awards — 52nd Awards (2009) — Best Classical Crossover Album
John Denman (clarinet), Yo-Yo Ma (cello)New Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Vernon Handley
Lyrita · SRCD236 · 70 minutes
Finzi writes with this aching, autumnal quality that feels utterly English without ever being postcard-pretty, and both concertos here capture that bittersweet mood at its most concentrated. Yo-Yo Ma brings a wistful inwardness to the Cello Concerto’s slow movement that feels genuinely searching — you can hear him tracing every shadow in the melody rather than just playing over it. John Denman is equally attentive in the Clarinet Concerto, and Vernon Handley holds the whole thing together with the kind of quiet authority that makes Finzi sound inevitable.
Awards:
- Gramophone Magazine — August 2007 — Re-issue of the Month
- Penguin Guide — Rosette
“The Cello Concerto was in many ways the composer’s swansong… The beautifully slow movement is deeply searching and draws on an Elgarian quality, a poignant nobility. Yo-Yo Ma’s wistfully introspective…”
— Gramophone Magazine, August 2007
Emanuel Ax (piano), Isaac Stern (violin), Jaime Laredo (viola), Yo-Yo Ma (cello)
Sony · G010002737677X · 2 hours 7 minutes
Brahms loads his piano quartets with such emotional density — those long-breathed melodies that seem to carry the weight of entire lifetimes — and this ensemble meets that challenge with something genuinely rare. Ax, Stern, Laredo, and Ma play as if they’ve fully inhabited every phrase, finding the warmth inside the storm rather than just riding its surface. The remaster gives the whole thing a new clarity that lets you hear just how deeply these four musicians were listening to each other.
Awards:
- Gramophone Awards — 1991 — Winner – Chamber
- Grammy Awards — 34th Awards (1991) — Best Chamber Music Recording
Yo-Yo Ma (cello), New York Philharmonic Orchestra, John Williams
Sony · 19439983662 · 68 minutes
Few composers blur the line between the concert hall and the cinema as naturally as John Williams, and hearing him conduct his own music alongside Yo-Yo Ma feels like eavesdropping on a conversation between two old souls. Ma’s tone on the cello concerto is exactly what BBC Music Magazine points to — that luminous, floating quality that somehow stays weightless even when the harmonics underneath are doing something complex and rich. At 68 minutes it’s a generous program, and the spatial audio mix gives the whole thing a presence that makes the New York Philharmonic feel like they’re practically in the room with you.
Awards:
- Gramophone Awards — 2022 — Shortlisted – Spatial Audio
- Presto Recordings of the Year — Finalist 2022
- Presto Recording of the Week — 23rd December 2022
- Opus Klassik Awards — 2023 — Nominated – Conductor of the Year
“It’s a treat to hear Ma lend his still-flawless technique to this selection. His light and transparent tone floats serenely above the Concerto’s dense harmonic landscape, and the arrangements…”
— BBC Music Magazine, August 2022,4 out of 5 stars
