Sony Classical is pleased to announce another ten releases in it's increasingly comprehensive series of Classical Masters. These new budget-priced releases contain classic recordings, many of them newly remastered, by some of the most celebrated musicians of the 20th century. Describing the 1982 recording of the Bach Solo Suites by, arguably, the world's favorite cellist, the Penguin Guide wrote that Yo-Yo Ma's playing "has a characteristic rhythmic freedom and favors the widest range of dynamics. The improvisatory effect is seemingly spontaneous and these performances are very compelling indeed, for Ma seems right inside every bar of the music. The first-class recording is very real and natural." This Grammy-winning cycle forms the heart of Sony's new Yo-Yo Ma reissue, which also has the American cellist performing Bach's three Viola da Gamba Sonatas with harpsichordist Kenneth Cooper; transcriptions of Bach chorales and orchestral works plus cello concertos by Boccherini in collaboration with Ton Koopman and the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra; and, for good measure, concertos and other works by Boccherini and Johann Christian Bach with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra under Pinchas Zukerman.
