Did Yo Yo Ma play at Senator Kennedy funeral?”
BOSTON – Cellist Yo-Yo Ma and tenor Placido Domingo will perform at the funeral Mass for Sen. Edward Kennedy. The Rev. Philip Dabney, associate pastor of Boston’s Mission Church, says Saturday’s service will be a “regular Catholic funeral” — with superb music. In addition, there will be a contingent from the Boston Symphony Orchestra and a soprano from New York’s Metropolitan Opera.
During the Offertory, Yo-Yo Ma played the Sarabande from Bach’s Suite No. 6 for Unaccompanied Cello, a piece of elegant, comforting beauty, with a hint of sadness in the descending melodic motive that recurs. Intonation could not have been easy to maintain in the un-airconditioned church, but Ma came through, as always, with his deeply poetic phrasing. The cellist returned at Communion to accompany Placido Domingo in the Cesar Franck hymn, “Panis Angelicus,” a work of great warmth that was much loved in the days of pre-guitar Catholicism. It was intriguing to hear just a tenor and a solo cello perform this music, and I found the result quite touching, a very personal performance. Domingo hit a rough note or two, but sang with considerable expressive power to the counterpoint of Ma’s eloquent counterpoint. (Update: I’ve added video of the Franck.) After Communion, mezzo-soprano Susan Graham offered a sublime account of another work long a favorite at Catholic services, Schubert’s “Ave M
