Washington Classical Review

Yo-Yo Ma performed Tuesday night at the Music Center at Strathmore, presented by Washington Performing Arts. Photo: Brantley Gutierrez

A man, a chair, a cello.

No more was needed for Yo-Yo Ma’s solo recital Tuesday evening, presented by Washington Performing Arts. The venue turned out to be different, because earlier this season, WPA had relocated the performance from the Kennedy Center to the Music Center at Strathmore.

“What a beautiful hall,” Ma said during one of his speeches between pieces. “Kind of like a home away from home.” He then noted that his cello, a 1733 Montagnana cello from Venice, “was 43 years old when the Declaration of Independence was signed.” Music is a sort of continuum through time and place, “just as we are,” he said, adding proudly, “I am an immigrant.”

His selection of music underscored this theme, with short pieces by composers from America, China, and Turkey, interspersed with three of the Suites for Solo Cello by J.S. Bach. Even the latter pieces, he explained, are themselves collections of dances of different national origins, so that the evening represented a cosmopolitan mixture rather than something contained by borders. As much as possible, Ma tried to blur the pieces together by forestalling applause.

Ma’s Bach has long set standards. All three Suites embodied how his approach has evolved. On one hand, in spite of the baroque instrument in his hands, Ma leans toward a romantic touch, with an elegant legato style and frequent application of rubato. In other dances, glimmers of appreciation of the early music movement came through, with a more pointed rhythmic regularity and detached attack.

Suite No. 1 stood out for the flowing rhythm of its famous Prelude, as well as the freer interpretation of the Allemande and especially the tender Sarabande. A more rhythmic approach came in the dance-like Courante and Menuets, especially the second Menuet, taken sotto voce, implying an interiority that suited its minor key. The Gigue’s tempo, not especially fast, helped Ma shape it into something a little more folksy.

Suite No. 5, the darkest and most tragic of the six, posed uncomfortable questions at the heart of the program. Its Prelude, styled as a French overture, combined a rueful opening section with growling bass notes, followed by an understated fugal section. Ma’s handling of the Courante, because of its fast tempo, felt more gestural than precise. Ma gave poignant voice to the suite’s austere Sarabande, without stretching it into oblivion. It was a strength of Ma’s Bach choices that he included all three types of optional dances in the set: Menuet, Gavotte, and Bourrée.

Last, Ma offered Suite No. 3 as a consolation, “a celebration of community” whose joy can carry us through the darkest times “with hope.” A focus here on the dances’ regular rhythms gave this Suite a charming sense of movement, with a bouncy Allemande, clearly articulated Courante, and especially light and airy Bourrées. The Gigue delighted with earthy sensibility, especially the sections with folk-like drones.

Two pieces that Ma has played with his Silk Road Ensemble served as hors-d’oeuvres rather than serving as equals to the Bach monuments. Ma eschewed the percussion that usually accompanies Summer in the High Grasslands by film composer Zhao Jiping. With a striking vocal dimension to his high A-string playing, Ma evoked a traditional Asian instrument in this brief, pleasing piece. He then interpolated an unannounced work, Mark O’Connor’s Appalachia Waltz, as if to emphasize the universality of folk music around the world.

Ahmed Adnan Saygun’s Allegretto from Partita No. 1, with its evocative Turkish folk music scalar patterns, set a meditative tone with some impressively accurate high harmonics as well. The piece, completed in 1954, came from the same period as the Sonata for Solo Cello by George Crumb, an early work for the American composer that does not use as many experimental techniques. In fact, textures in its three movements hearkened back to some movements of the Bach Suites, tying up the program in a thoughtful way.

For an encore, Ma turned to the example of his idol, cellist Pablo Casals, and his arrangement of the Catalan song “El cant dels ocells” (Song of the Birds). The tune, sung traditionally to a Christmas text, added to the sense of light piercing the darkness. Ma, who turned 70 last fall, noted that it was probably the last piece that Casals played, shortly before his death at 95. “Now that I am almost that old,” he joked, “I figure it’s time for me to play it, too.”

Klaus Mäkelä and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra come to Strathmore for Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony and Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique 7:30 p.m. February 27. washingtonperformingarts.org