Yo-Yo Ma - Shostakovich: The Cello Concertos

Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) are joined by star cellist Yo-Yo Ma for the release their new album of Shostakovich’s two cello concertos. The album coincides with the 50th anniversary of the composer’s death in 1975 and is part of the upcoming anthology bringing together the BSO’s decade-long, GRAMMY Award®-winning Shostakovich project.

Benefiting from the superb audio quality achieved in the exceptional acoustic of Boston’s Symphony Hall, Yo-Yo Ma gives inspired performances of the two cello concertos. The inventive First was written for a friend, Mstislav Rostropovich, a famously demanding piece that was an early landmark in Ma’s own career. 

The far more introspective Second was the composer’s 60th-birthday present to himself. Yo-Yo Ma says about the work: “This piece is as relevant today as it was then. I think Shostakovich’s artistic truth was to represent the voice of the voiceless.”