| Yo-Yo Ma and the Bach cello suites: familiar, but certainly not routine Dec 4th 2012, 06:41 Seeing and hearing Yo-Yo Ma play the Bach cello suites is an act of cultural tourism. I was going to equate it with visiting Chartres, but it's not quite that monumental — Chartres might be the equivalent of, say, hearing Daniel Barenboim play all the Beethoven sonatas (yet again). The six Bach suites take up only one or two evenings; playing the first three of them, plus accompanying works, as Ma did at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall on Monday night, occupies no more than two hours. This is not to disparage them, and certainly not to postulate length as a measure of quality: simply to say that Ma has played them so often they are something of a touchstone, not only for him but for most music-lovers, and so experiencing him playing them could be akin to ticking something off a bucket list. Read full article >>   |  | The Marseille Caper, by Peter Mayle Dec 4th 2012, 01:19 It's that time of year. The days are getting colder, the nights longer, and you're already bracing for the awkward holiday kiss from good ol' Aunt Evelyn. Be grateful, then, for Peter Mayle, who arrives just in time to whisk you away on another wine-splashed, sun-kissed Provencal escapade in his delightful new Sam Levitt novel, "The Marseille Caper." Read full article >>   | |
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