Cellist Yo-Yo Ma and Pianist Kathryn Stott Release New Album 'Merci'

Yo-Yo Ma and longtime collaborator Kathryn Stott have released their newest album, Merci (Sony Classical), which is out now. Merci is a deeply personal expression of gratitude, a celebration of the powerful relationships that keep music alive. This effervescent recording is rooted in the compositions of Gabriel Fauré, whom Stott calls her “musical soulmate,” and follows the arcs of his inspiration and influence, from the creations of his teacher Camille Saint-Saëns and his friend and supporter Pauline Viardot to works by his student Nadia Boulanger and her sister, Lili. Merci is testament to the gift of friendship, to the connections among performers, between students and teachers, and across generations that make music magic.

Ma and Stott—both of whom have connections to Fauré through their respective teachers Luise Vosgerchian and Nadia Boulanger—reveal the extent of Fauré’s influence and inspiration through a recording that juxtaposes Fauré’s works for strings and piano with compositions by members of his musical family. Beginning with his Berceuse, Op. 16, Fauré’s works alternate with those of his student (Nadia Boulanger), teacher (Camille Saint-Saëns), and friends and contemporaries (Lili Boulanger, Pauline Viardot), in a tribute to the belief that, in Ma’s words, “we musicians stand on the shoulders of those who came before us, and that we can only hope that ours will sustain those who come after.”

“The inspiration for this project stretches back to my very early years as a child at the Menuhin School, where teachers often visited from Paris,” Stott writes in the recording’s liner notes. “One of those was Nadia Boulanger. Nadia had been a student of Gabriel Fauré, and when I was 10, I had the great privilege to play Fauré’s fourth Barcarolle for her; from that moment, Fauré’s music never left my side. At the age of 10, I had found my musical soulmate.”

Gabriel Fauré lies at the heart of a musical family tree so thoroughly ingrained in the history of western music that it extends, through direct teacher-mentor lineage, as far back as Johann Sebastian Bach. The forward-looking reach of Fauré’s influence is no less impressive: artists who can trace a direct connection to Fauré through teachers or mentors include Quincy Jones, Aaron Copland, Philip Glass, and Leonard Bernstein.

Surrounding the album release, Ma and Stott will perform a recital tour in Europe, including stops in Reykjavík (October 26), London (November 2), Stockholm (November 3), Berlin (November 5), Munich (November 7), and Paris (November 9). Programmed works include compositions by Fauré and Nadia Boulanger, alongside Antonin Dvořák, Sérgio Assad, Dmitri Shostakovich, Arvo Pärt, and César Franck.

Ma and Stott’s recording partnership began in 1985, and includes Soul of the Tango and Obrigado Brazil, each of which garnered a GRAMMY® Award for “Best Classical Crossover Album.” In recent years, they have collaborated on the 2020 release Songs of Comfort and Hope—inspired by the recorded-at-home musical offerings that Ma began sharing under the hashtag #SongsofComfort in the first days of the COVID-19 lockdown in the United States—and the critically-acclaimed 2015 release Songs from the Arc of Life. Of the former, Gramophone wrote, “Ma and his frequent duo partner Kathryn Stott have managed to corral a collection of wide-ranging miniatures into something that feels closer to a recital than a compilation.”