About 25 years ago, the acclaimed cellist asked a high school student to help him name his instrument. Yo-Yo Ma brings his cello — aka "Petunia" — to his conversation with Terry Gross. He talks about being a child prodigy, his rebel years, and straddling three cultures: American, French, and Chinese.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Chapter 1: What is the significance of Thanksgiving for Yo-Yo Ma?
Hi, it's Terry Gross. Before we start our show, I want to take a minute to remind you that it's Almost Giving Tuesday, which is so named because it's become a day of expressing gratitude by giving money or any kind of help to an individual or group or organization that matters to you. We've found a way to turn Giving Tuesday into Giving and Getting Tuesday. Thank you. It's a win-win.
So join us at plus.npr.org. That's plus.npr.org. Or you can always make a gift at donate.npr.org. Thank you, and thanks to everyone who's already supporting us. And now, on with the show. This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. I hope you're enjoying your Thanksgiving. For the holiday, we're going to feature one of our favorite interviews of the year with Yo-Yo Ma. © BF-WATCH TV 2021
But lots of people who pay no attention to classical music know Yo-Yo Ma because he's performed in so many different contexts. He's played American folk and bluegrass music, and he's played music from around the world with the Silk Road Ensemble, which he founded. He's appeared on Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, Sesame Street, and The Simpsons.
On the first anniversary of 9-11, at the ceremony held at Ground Zero, he performed one of the Bach cello suites. Earlier this year, in April, he played at the memorial for the seven aid workers from World Central Kitchen who were killed in an Israeli airstrike while they were feeding people trapped in Gaza.
Yo-Yo Ma started playing cello at age four, and by the time he was seven, he performed at an event attended by President Kennedy and former President Dwight Eisenhower, where he was introduced by Leonard Bernstein. In 2011, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Obama. That's one of the many honors he's received. including 19 Grammys.
He has a new album with pianist Catherine Stott, who he's performed with for over 40 years. She's about to retire. Their new album, Merci, is their final album together. I spoke with Yo-Yo Ma last May at an event held at WHYY where Fresh Air is produced, where he received WHYY's annual Lifelong Learning Award.
The only honor greater than having Yo-Yo Ma here tonight is having Yo-Yo Ma with his cello here tonight. So I'm absolutely thrilled about this. So I want you to introduce your cello to us, because it's from the 1700s. This cello is older than the United States of America.
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Chapter 2: How did Yo-Yo Ma come to name his cello 'Petunia'?
Well, Terry, the first thing I want to tell you is that the cello's name is Petunia.
It has a name?
Yeah. And the reason it's named Petunia is because I was playing in Salt Lake City in Utah, probably about 25 years ago, and a high school student whose name I still remember as Brittany asked me, does your cello have a name? I said, no, but I'll play you a piece of music and if you can think of a name, maybe I'll keep it. And so I played a piece of music. She said, Petunia. I said, that's it.
And the name has stuck.
One of the things you're famous for is one of the most famous series of compositions for cello, and it's the Bach's Cello Suites Unaccompanied. You recorded them three times.
I did it once in my 20s. I did it once in my 40s. I did it once in my 60s. So every 20 years or so, I figured I might get it better.
1983 was the first time. 2018 was the last time. So the Bach cello suites are the music that really first forefronted the cello, as opposed to it being more of a background instrument, right?
Well, it was written for cello alone, so there was no background or foreground. It had to be all ground, right?
And they're beautiful pieces, but they were kind of discovered or rediscovered long after his death, I think. And some people thought, well, they're great like exercises. They're like technical exercises. They're not beautiful music until Pablo Casals recorded it.
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Chapter 3: What makes Bach's Cello Suites special for Yo-Yo Ma?
I know for one of them you'd have to retune.
Let's avoid that. I won't retune, but I'll play you this beginning. So this is the very first piece of music I learned as a four-year-old. piano plays may have heard this before. And as a four year old, I learned it. And what was interesting for a beginning cellist, if you look at this. I just use one finger and it's the same pattern twice over.
Everything we have in life
is about patterns, the same or different. We are constantly oscillating between the same and different. Right? And so it was easy for a child to learn things that had patterns to it, and when it was different, it was interesting. Now, why is this beautiful? As a four-year-old, I learned it fairly easily. Kids absorb things as a sponge absorbs water really easily.
After nine years old, you don't pick up languages anymore. Naturally, you actually start to analyze things, you use your mind, and it's a different process of assimilation. So by the time I got to my 20s or 30s, this piece became hard. Because how do I play it? And what I discovered and what made it so beautiful for me is that whereas it was hard to start, but if I thought of an image of water,
of a brook or a river. And if I thought that the piece started before I began, and I just joined the water. You know what it is about a river? It's never the same river, but you always call it the same river, but the water's never the same. So if I think of a water element, here's what it ends up sounding like.
You actually get to code infinite variety.
Right? In a world where we can measure everything, or we think we can measure everything, how wonderful it is that you could have the poetry of music, or poetry, or music that actually makes you think you are touching infinity.
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Chapter 4: How did Yo-Yo Ma balance being a child prodigy and a normal childhood?
You learned this when you were four. That's when you started learning.
And I'm 68. That means I've been trying to get this right for 64 years.
You were quite the child prodigy. You were performing for presidents, current and former, by the time you were seven, right? Kennedy and Eisenhower, do I have that right?
I guess so, yeah.
Yeah, and, you know, Leonard Bernstein came and heard you, right? So I'm wondering, when you're young, And people are making such an amazing fuss over you, like you're so extraordinary. Do you risk becoming a praise junkie? Because you get so much of it. And that's maybe your measure of your worth in the world. But music isn't always about getting praise. It's about finding...
You're a voice within the music. And I'm wondering, some people can't make that transition, I think. Some prodigies never find what's unique about their playing because what was unique was that they were young and gifted.
Now, what's interesting about two-year-olds and three-year-olds, they are the center of their world.
Right.
And if you get a lot of attention, of course you want more attention. But I think... As I was growing up, my wife and I have friends that say, Yo-Yo, you and your wife, you aspire toward normalcy. Now, that's interesting because kids are really smart.
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Chapter 5: What were the influences of Yo-Yo Ma's childhood on his music?
And my parents would say, well, you know, there's Chinese culture, you know, ancient culture, this is so great. And I was wondering, you know, then why are we in America? So I was very confused because people would say, choose, you must be one or the other, whatever. And I thought... Why? Why do I need to choose? Because I love croissant. Do I have to give up croissant for Wonder Bread?
I don't mind rice either, but I love potatoes too. Do we need to make a choice on everything?
When you were young and performing, were you nervous about it? And did you ever feel like, don't take this the wrong way? But did you ever feel like you were like a trained seal? Do you know what I mean? Like, here's the kid and he's going to perform for you. This is an amazing act because he's a kid.
Because it's almost freakish to be that talented when you're that young and to be able to memorize and play such complicated music.
Well, that's assuming that you're doing a comparative thing. I didn't particularly know what I was doing was good, bad, ugly, or whatever. I just did things. Now, yes, there's the part of me from... two, not one, but two tiger parents. You've all heard of tiger parents? You know, Asian household. And that, you know, I had to do, well, I had to listen to them. There's not much dialogue.
It's a lot of monologue, right? You do this, you're a good boy, you can do this, and this is the right thing to do. And I had a father who was an incredibly gifted teacher.
And he was a professor in China, a professor of music.
He started a children's orchestra in New York. And he was just a really brilliant teacher, but irascible. And I had a mother who was... who loved music, who was a singer, who actually loved to be moved by music. So I had both the head and heart sort of thing from either parent. And I think there was a lot of emphasis on trying to get things right consistently. So I had fantastic training.
I had fantastic ear training. But... Did I know why I was doing something or what it was about? I think it was after I went away to summer camp and especially to college where whatever I was doing and that I was passionate about was matched easily by my peer group being interested in their passions. And suddenly the world opened up.
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Chapter 6: How did Yo-Yo Ma rebel during his youth?
APPLAUSE
One of the things I find really amazing about your life story is that you were so disciplined as a child. I mean, because you were learning so much stuff.
I'm still disciplined.
But you went through this period of actually rebelling. I'm still rebelling. Are you?
Yes, of course. I'm rebelling against people doing things and not knowing why they're doing it. I'm rebelling against people saying this is the only way to go. I'm rebelling against people saying this is right and this is wrong without ever explaining why.
Yes, but when you were rebelling in school, You were cutting classes.
Yes.
In Juilliard, you were sneaking out between orchestra breaks to get alcohol.
Absolutely, absolutely.
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Chapter 7: What role did family play in Yo-Yo Ma's musical journey?
To the emergency room once.
Absolutely. And my father had to check me out of the hospital because I was 15 years old.
You had a fake ID.
Yes.
He could not have been very happy about that.
No. He gave up drinking because, you know, like guilt, shame, all of that stuff.
Your father gave up drinking because you were a bad example?
Yes, because he thought, you know, because my mother said, you know, see, you're a bad example for your son. It was horrible. Were you punished? Well, the shame and guilt was like, you know, if that's not punishment enough, it's like, you know, my father's only joy, you know, was a glass of wine. He gave that up. Yeah, right?
You see, I see everybody's... So was there a point where you weren't sure whether you really wanted to play music or whether that was just your father's idea?
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Chapter 8: What does Yo-Yo Ma believe about being a musician versus being a human?
Well, let's put it this way. I loved music. I think after I went and started playing chamber music with friends at the Alexander Schneider's sort of Christmas string seminar, which is now known as the String Seminar, 10 days around the holidays where you just are playing chamber music and meeting 15, 16, 17-year-olds. That's my version of fun.
I wanted to join the Juilliard Quartet and play cello and be with friends. That was my goal. Did I want to be a cellist? Eh. Did I want to do that? Yes. But you know what really inspired me most was when I was nine, I read a book by Pablo Casals. And he said in his book that I am a human being first, I'm a musician second, and I'm a cellist third.
And now, coming from my background and reading this from my hero, I thought, that man I like.
How did that compare to the message you were getting from your father?
Well, it was the opposite. It was the reverse, right? But you're a cellist first? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the right order for me always, always, is you're a human being first, and then you are a member of that sector of musicians second. And last, I'm a cellist.
We're listening to the interview I recently recorded with cellist Yo-Yo Ma at an event held at WHYY where Fresh Air is produced. We'll hear more of the interview after a break, and I'll ask him to play what he likes to play for himself when he needs to get in touch with something larger than himself. I'm Terry Gross, and this is Fresh Air. This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross.
Let's get back to the interview I recorded in May with Yo-Yo Ma, the beloved cellist who's famous for his performances of Bach solo cello suites and for the music he's played with the Silk Road Ensemble, which he founded to play music from around the world with musicians from around the world as a way of bridging different cultures.
He's won 19 Grammys and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama. His latest album is a duet with pianist Catherine Stott called Merci. Our conversation was recorded at WHYY, where Fresh Air is produced, in front of a live audience. Was there a piece where you felt like you really found your voice as an individual?
You know, as Yo-Yo Ma, as opposed to just like, you know, somebody who's incredibly talented, but this was your voice, your unique voice.
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