#couch tour

[sadie-sorceress]

small collection of my favourite couch tour comments

[spacesiick]

couch tour funny screenshot dump -Lithuania May 29-30

[rapsca1lion]

METAL EXINCTION !!!!!!!!

[jennschiffer]

because we live with a black cat, we don’t really do solid light colors in this household. so i tie dyed!

[fungalcultist]

there's no heterosexual explanation to what's going on on that stage

[theloniousbach]

Couch Tour: The Bach Cello Suites, 24 May 2020

Yo Yo Ma has been one of the artists using social media to keep us in touch with our humanity during the Great Disruption.  I have seen posts of a daily (?) short performance just as Patrick Stewart reads a Shakespeare sonnet.  I have followed Fred Hersch from a Facebook “Tune of the Day” to a weekly Patreon concert and I have faithfully made Jorma Kaukonen’s Quarantine Concerts a regular feature.

But Ma’s YouTube concert of this key part of the repertoire on You Tube was a drop everything, rearrange the day event.  He has recorded them in 1983 and 2018 and obviously has important things to say about them.  I took a class on the Suites and settled on Janos Starker’s as my preferred performances, not as raw as Casals but starker (yeah, sorry) than Ma.  But Ma is Ma and the Cello Suites are landmarks.

Today he was in a Boston public television studio and played them straight through in a stunning mix of stamina and taste.  It’s a marathon for artist and listener alike, but that adds to the exhilaration of hearing them all in one sitting.  I had seen a local cellist perform them over two concerts and that welcomed concentration and reflection.

But this concert was explicitly for the Memorial Day weekend, both as testimony of our resilience (captured in his comments before #3) and for our losses (people, of course, but also aspects of our lives, before #5) which gave it power and weight.

I know these works some, so, befitting these notes as souvenirs, I don’t feel the need to explore them further as a whole.  I’m not making a first assay of them.

So,

--I took delight in several fifth movements, the variable dance forms. in particular the Bouree in #4 and #5’s Gavotte.  Though after the Preludes, all movements are inspired by dances, they seem particularly nimble and actually structured for dancers.

--this #5 was performed in standard tuning and not scordatura.  It and #6, which can be performed on a violoncello piccolo, invite some nifty technical efforts.  

--since I mostly listen to 1, 3, and 6, plus Gigue #4 which sounds like an actual jig, I am glad to hear the others again.  2 and 5 are in minor keys, hence the appropriateness of using 5 to invoke loss.  That said, the wash of familiarity from each one was gratifying.

--it is, as always, just a treat to watch the magic happen live and Ma is not only tremendous but imparts a depth of feeling.  He is a warmer player than Casals and Starker, say, but I didn’t find him dramatic or intrusive.  Rather there was a serene sensitivity that served the compositions and the programmatic aims of a Memorial Day weekend performance.

[kaythebay]

Couch tour. instagram: @kaleinyasoftly

[officialsoulive]

Join us Friday and Saturday night for a special #Bowlive Couch Tour. We'll be streaming the final two shows live from @BrooklynBowl at www.Nugs.tv

Fri. June 16 w/ George Porter Jr., Marcus King +The Shady Horns Sat. June 17 w/ Nigel Hall + The Shady Horns