Songs of Comfort & Hope

Yo-Yo Ma / Kathryn Stott

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Songs of Comfort & Hope Review

by Matt Collar

Cellist Yo-Yo Ma and pianist Kathryn Stott continue their longstanding creative partnership with their warmly delivered 2020 duo album Songs of Comfort & Hope. Recorded during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, the set initially began as a series of online performances Ma gave as a way of connecting with and offering solace to his fans. Using the hashtag #SongsofComfort, Ma posted his solo performances and encouraged others to post theirs in turn. As an organic outgrowth of that process, Ma then paired with Stott to record some of the songs, as well as others in the same spirit. The resulting Songs of Comfort & Hope follows their previous Grammy-winning collaborations, 1997's Soul of the Tango: The Music of Astor Piazzolla and 2003's Obrigado Brazil, and finds them performing a mix of traditional folk tunes, classical pieces, and jazz standards. There's a textural, ASMR quality to many of these performances, as in the opening "Amazing Grace, Prelude," in which Ma and Stott play against a backdrop of what sounds like a boat rocking gently in a storm at sea. Less theatrical, if no less captivating songs follow, including atmospheric renditions of Antonin Dvorák's "Going Home," Wu Tong's "Rain Falling from the Roof," and Francis Poulenc's "Les Chemins de l'Amour." Particularly vibrant is their take on "Scarborough Fair" as they each take turns playing the melody while the other offers shimmering, percussive accompaniment. It's that deeply engaging interplay between Ma and Stott throughout all of Songs of Comfort & Hope that makes the album both a compelling and relaxing experience.

Track Listing

	Title/Composer	Performer	Time	Stream
Amazing Grace, Prelude & Postlude
1	Prelude Graham Fitkin	Yo-Yo Ma / Kathryn Stott	04:05	Amazon
2	Ol' Man River (from Showboat) Oscar Hammerstein II / Jerome Kern	Yo-Yo Ma / Kathryn Stott	04:05	Amazon
3	Shenandoah Caroline Shaw	Yo-Yo Ma / Kathryn Stott	05:22	Amazon
4	Goin' Home (from Symphony No. 9 'From The New World', Op. 95, B. 17B) William Arms Fisher	Yo-Yo Ma / Kathryn Stott	05:26	Amazon
Jewish Life
5	No. 3. Jewish Song Ernest Bloch	Yo-Yo Ma / Kathryn Stott	02:16	Amazon
6	Zdes' khorosho, Op. 21, No. 7 Sergey Rachmaninov	Yo-Yo Ma / Kathryn Stott	02:09	Amazon
7	Moscow Nights Mikhail Matusovsky / Vasily Solovyov-Sedoy	Yo-Yo Ma / Kathryn Stott	02:56	Amazon
8	Over the Rainbow (from The Wizard of Oz) Harold Arlen	Yo-Yo Ma / Kathryn Stott	03:37	Amazon
9	Rain Falling from the Roof Wu Tong	Yo-Yo Ma / Kathryn Stott	05:27	Amazon
10	Song Without Words, Op. 109 Felix Mendelssohn	Yo-Yo Ma / Kathryn Stott	04:14	Amazon
11	Fantasia on Waltzing Matilda Harry Sdraulig	Yo-Yo Ma / Kathryn Stott	04:54	Amazon
12	Scarborough Fair Stephen Hough	Yo-Yo Ma / Kathryn Stott	02:32	Amazon
Peer Gynt
13	Solveig's Song Edvard Grieg	Yo-Yo Ma / Kathryn Stott	04:38	Amazon
14	Les Chemins de l'Amour Francis Poulenc	Yo-Yo Ma / Kathryn Stott	03:07	Amazon
15	Marietta's Lied (from Die Tote Stadt) Erich Wolfgang Korngold	Yo-Yo Ma / Kathryn Stott	06:09	Amazon
16	Thula Baba Roderick Williams	Yo-Yo Ma / Kathryn Stott	01:58	Amazon
17	The Last Rose of Summer Benjamin Britten	Yo-Yo Ma / Kathryn Stott	03:46	Amazon
18	Londonderry Air (Danny Boy) Fritz Kreisler	Yo-Yo Ma / Kathryn Stott	04:12	Amazon
19	Gracias a la Vida Violeta Parra	Yo-Yo Ma / Kathryn Stott	03:12	Amazon
20	We'll Meet Again Hughie Charles / Ross Parker	Yo-Yo Ma / Kathryn Stott	03:04	Amazon
Amazing Grace, Prelude & Postlude
21	Postlude Graham Fitkin	Yo-Yo Ma / Kathryn Stott	01:43	Amazon