LYRITA LP SRCS-112: Gerald Finzi - Cello Concerto - Yo-Yo Ma - 1979 UK NM

$

100

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Background -

One of the best-known cellists of his generation and of the recording era overall, Yo-Yo Ma is recognized not only for his technical virtuosity but for his engaging interpretative ability, whether the tone is delicate, plaintive, playful, or impassioned. After breaking through with a collection of Bach cello suites in 1983, his ambitions and his appeal stretched far beyond the classical sphere via popular collaborations with such artists as jazz vocalist Bobby McFerrin (1992's Hush) and bluegrass musicians Stuart Duncan and Chris Thile (2011's The Goat Rodeo Sessions). Within the classical repertoire, his performances have spanned the Baroque era through works of his contemporaries, and among his repeat collaborators are pianist Emanuel Ax, violinist Isaac Stern, and bassist Edgar Meyer. Ma is also founder of the Silk Road Ensemble, a collective of musicians with a multicultural Eurasian focus. He won his 18th Grammy Award in 2017 for Silk Road Ensemble's Sing Me Home, his first in the category of Best World Music Album.

Yo-Yo Ma was born in Paris, France in 1955. The child of two musicians, he began music lessons very early, trying piano and all the string instruments before settling on cello. His first public performance was at the age of five. Ma's family moved to New York when he was seven so he could study with Janos Scholz. Before the age of ten, Ma had performed for Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy, and had appeared on television with his sister in a concert led by Leonard Bernstein and on The Tonight Show. Ma became a student of Leonard Rose at Juilliard, but did not complete his studies there. Inspired by seeing the commitment of nonagenarian Pablo Casals at the Marlboro Festival, he enrolled at Harvard to finish his bachelor's degree, graduating in 1976.
Following Murray Perahia and Lynn Harrell, Ma became the third recipient of the Avery Fisher Prize in 1978. A year later, he made his recording debut as main artist with Finzi's Cello Concerto, alongside the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. He then signed with CBS Masterworks, which released recordings of Saint-Saëns, Haydn, and Beethoven (Sonatas 1 & 2, with Emanuel Ax), among others, before 1983's J.S. Bach: The 6 Unaccompanied Cello Suites proved to be his breakout album. He returned quickly with more Beethoven sonatas with Ax and a Schubert quintet album with the Cleveland Quartet as well as Claude Bolling's Suite for Cello & Jazz Piano Trio. He also recorded an album of Japanese Melodies with accompaniment by bass, percussion, and flute. In 1985, he released Elgar and Walton's cello concertos, performed with André Previn and the London Symphony Orchestra. Some of his other albums in the '80s included recordings with Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Lorin Maazel and the Berlin Philharmonic, and, in 1988, Brahms' Double Concerto with violinist Isaac Stern and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra led by Claudio Abbado. The following year brought Anything Goes: Stephane Grappelli & Yo-Yo Ma Play (Mostly) Cole Porter.
In the '90s, amid a stream of annual classical releases, Ma continued to raise his profile with mainstream audiences on crossover albums such as 1992's Hush with vocalist Bobby McFerrin. Issued by Sony, that record reached the top half of the Billboard 200 and was followed by a duo tour. In 1996, he appeared with bassist Edgar Meyer and violinist Mark O'Connor on the folk-inspired album Appalachian Journey, which went to number one on the Billboard classical chart. The year 1997 saw Soul of the Tango featuring the music of composer Astor Piazzolla, and Ma was the featured soloist on composer Tan Dun's Symphony 1997 (Heaven, Earth, Mankind) and on John Williams' score for the film Seven Years in Tibet. That year, he also appeared on the soundtrack to the documentary mini-series Liberty!, which featured O'Connor along with Ma, trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, and singer/songwriter James Taylor. In 1998, he returned to the Bach suites with Inspired by Bach: The Cello Suites, recording them for six short films in collaboration with director Atom Egoyan, ice dancers Torvill and Dean, dancer Mark Morris, and other artists. He then recorded 1999's Simply Baroque with the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, and they followed it a year later with Simply Baroque II. Also in 2000, he reunited with O'Connor and Meyer for Appalachian Journey (another classical number one) and with Tan Dun for the soundtrack to Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. After establishing the Silk Road Ensemble to bring together musicians from diverse cultural backgrounds along the ancient Eurasian trade route, he issued Silk Road Journeys in 2001. Credited as Yo-Yo Ma & the Silk Road Ensemble, they presented music such as a Mongolian love song, traditional Chinese songs, and Finnish folk songs. That year, Ma was awarded the National Medal of the Arts by the NEA.
In 2002, Sony Classical released Yo-Yo Ma Plays the Music of John Williams, an original recording produced and conducted by Williams. That year, Silk Road Ensemble cracked the Billboard 200 with Silk Road Journeys: When Strangers Meet, and Ma's cello could be heard on Philip Glass' score for the film Naqoyqatsi. Featuring over a dozen guests, including bossa nova singer Rosa Passos and the guitar duo of Sergio & Odair Assad, Obrigado Brazil arrived the following year and returned him to the top of the classical chart. He released a concert version of the album in 2004, a year that also saw Silk Road Journeys: Beyond the Horizon, Vivaldi's Cello, and Yo-Yo Ma Plays Ennio Morricone. The latter two charted on the Billboard 200. A year later, he appeared with Itzhak Perlman on the John Williams film score Memoirs of a Geisha. It, too, landed on the U.S. album chart. Silk Road Ensemble's New Impossibilities was recorded at Symphony Center with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 2007, and 2008's Yo-Yo Ma & Friends: Songs of Joy & Peace featured collaborations with names like Dave Brubeck, Renée Fleming, and Diana Krall, just to name a few. It was Ma's highest-charting album to that point, reaching number 20 on the Billboard 200. After an appearance at Barack Obama's 2009 inauguration, he climbed two spots higher with 2011's The Goat Rodeo Sessions, an album with Meyer, Stuart Duncan, and Chris Thile that also marked Ma's debut on the Bluegrass Albums chart. That year, Ma was also a recipient of a Kennedy Center Honor, the Glenn Gould Prize, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Another Silk Roads Ensemble album, A Playlist Without Borders, followed in 2013. Issued in 2015, Songs from the Arc of Life presented well-known classical tunes such as Schubert's (and Bach-Gounod's) Ave Maria and Brahms' Lullaby. It went to the top of the classical chart, as did Silk Road Ensemble's 2016 LP Sing Me Home. His next classical number one came just a year later with Bach: Trios, a set of keyboard pieces rearranged for Ma on cello, Meyer on bass, and Thile on mandolin. Also that year, the Silk Road Ensemble with Yo-Yo Ma performed the music for the Ken Burns-Lynn Novick documentary series The Vietnam War, and Ma collaborated with chamber orchestra the Knights on Azul. It offered a performance of the Osvaldo Golijov concerto alongside pieces by Dvorák, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Sufjan Stevens, among others. In 2019, Ma issued Six Evolutions: Bach Cello Suites, his planned final studio recording of the famed suites. - Marcy Donelson
There are listeners who swear cellist Yo-Yo Ma is at his best in the English repertoire. They may disregard his Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, and even dismiss his Haydn, Dvorák, and Shostakovich, but they'll solemnly declare Ma's recordings of Elgar, Walton, and Gerald Finzi as the best things he's ever done. To listeners who know Ma only as the big-toned, sweet-hearted super-virtuoso who recorded Appalachia Waltz, Silk Road Journeys, and Obrigado Brazil, the notion that he ever even recorded Finzi's Cello Concerto will be news. Yet, as this Lyrita disc proves, way back in 1979 Ma did indeed record the work with Vernon Handley and the Royal Philharmonic.
And it is a honey of a performance. Ma's in top form -- he never misses a note and his tone is ravishing -- he's hungry -- he never misses a chance to make the most of every opportunity for demonstrating his prowess -- but best of all he's dedicated -- listen to him dig into the opening Allegro moderato's coda, or soar with the central Andante quieto's big tunes, or swing into the closing Allegro giocoso's rollicking rhythms. Combined with the deeply idiomatic and supremely soulful accompaniment of Handley and the RPO, Ma's performance makes a powerful case for Finzi's concerto ranking with Elgar and Walton's as the peaks of the English repertoire. Anyone who likes English music or Ma should hear this disc.
Lyrita's late stereo recording is warm, cool, deep, and colorful. - James Leonard

• LP made by LYRITA Records, in the UK / England / Great Britain
  

• LP released in 1979

• LP is recorded in STEREO

• Record Catalog Number: SRCS 112
  

This listing is for a rare, out of print LP title - an OPENED, and in near mint minus overall condition LP PRESSED and ISSUED by LYRITA Records of a highly collectible title featuring -

Gerald Finzi // Yo-Yo Ma / Vernon Handley

LP Title -

Finzi: Concerto for Cello and Orchestra,Op. 40

Track Listing -

Concerto For Cello & Orchestra Op. 40
A. 1st Movement: Allegro Moderato
B1. 2nd Movement: Andante Quieto
B2. 3rd Movement: Rondo Adagio - Allegro Giocoso
Performers / Credits / Other Information -
• Printed By – Garrod & Lofthouse Ltd.
• Made By – Garrod & Lofthouse Ltd.
• Phonographic Copyright (p) – Lyrita Recorded Edition
• Copyright (c) – Lyrita Recorded Edition
• Cello – Yo-Yo Ma
• Composed By – Gerald Finzi
• Conductor – Vernon Handley
• Leader – Barry Griffiths
• Orchestra – Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
• Sleeve Notes – Diana McVeagh
• Rights Society: MCPS
• Matrix / Runout (Side A): ZLY-5223-1A
• Matrix / Runout (Side B): ZLY-5224-1A Pressed by EMI Records
CONDITION Details:

The LP jacket is in near mint minus overall condition. The jacket is tight and clean, with NO seam splits. The corners are solid. The colors on the jacket are sharp and clean with just light shelf wear along the seams and corners and NO writing on the back cover - see pictures as they are of the actual item.

The LP is in near mint minus overall condition! The vinyl has no serious marks. It may have a slight spider mark or two (caused by sliding the LP in and out of the inner sleeve). These types of marks may sound, depending on the sensitivity of your audio gear...some extraneous sound is inevitable and should be expected for a vintage LP. This LP retains much of the original gloss and sheen! There are NO serious spindle marks on the record labels either.

A Short Note About LP GRADING -

• Mint = Only used for sealed items.
• Near Mint = Virtually flawless in every way.
• Near Mint Minus = Item has some minor imperfections, some audible.
• Excellent = Item obviously played and enjoyed with some noise.
• Very Good Plus = Many more imperfections which are noticeable and obtrusive.

For best results, always thoroughly clean your LPs before playing them.

LPs can be audiophile quality pressings (any collector of fine MFSL, half speeds, direct to discs, Japanese/UK pressings etc., can attest to the difference a quality pressing can make to an audio system).

Do not let this rarity slip by!