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Top 10 for Mar

Yo-Yo Ma & Kathryn Stott - Songs From The Arc Of Life / / WRTI: Featured release for 2015

WRTI's Mark Pinto, host of the Classical New Releases show, fills you in on the latest and greatest classical music CDs every Saturday at 5 pm. Here are five newly released recordings he recommends.

Almost since the day Kathryn Stott laid eyes on Yo-Yo Ma in his underwear while practicing the cello in her London flat, the two have been making beautiful music together.  Actually, the two really did meet that way accidentally but have not been romantically involved.  But the way they perform together on this new recording will have you convinced that they are musical soul-mates.  Good friends who have worked together for the past 30 years, the pianist and cellist breathe as one in their performances of these 19 miniatures which express, as Ma states, "the context of a life, of our lives… the soundtrack of life."  The imaginatively-sequenced selections traverse a wide emotional terrain.  Stott and Ma completely inhabit each piece and convey each work's unique personality, whether delicate (Brahms' Lullaby), playful (Gade's Tango Jalousie), dramatic (Sibelius' Was It a Dream?), primal (Sollima's Il bell'Antonio), wistful (Elgar's Salut d'amour), soul-searching (Messiaen's Praise to the Eternity of Jesus), or devout (Schubert's and Bach-Gounod's Ave Marias).