A basic recital becomes a whole new trip

Yo-Yo Ma has traveled the Silk Road. Repeatedly. He’s journeyed further in person and in music, reached wider, than any other solo cellist, current or past. On stage, his comfort level appears the same whether he’s cavorting with Big Bird, being accompanied by Condoleezza Rice or gamely joining in an ensemble of kamancheh, shakuhachi, tabla, dumbek, riq and other world instruments in a dusty, far-flung Asian corner.

But Saturday night at UCLA’s Royce Hall, performing a relatively conventional cello recital with pianist Kathryn Stott, Ma might be said to have come home, or at least to have returned to his roots. This was a mostly standard program built around Schubert, Shostakovich and Cesar Franck. A tango and a touch of Brazilian jazz added a dash of untraditional zest but hardly enough to alter the basic formal recital formula.

Still, Ma’s wanderlust appears to have had a powerful, freeing effect on him. Not that he’s ever been a starchy, formal player. Indeed, he’s been known to get so carried away that he’s fallen off his chair while playing. In his excitement to return to the stage for an encore Saturday, he accidentally stepped on Stott’s heel. He responded to the audience’s laughter with a meek, sweet, quizzical look, as if this weren’t the first time.

Ma has never, of course, been a klutz with his cello. A raptly physical player at 52, he closes his eyes in quiet moments, dreamily floating into a musical trance. His characteristic attack of bow on strings in passionate passages remains as lusty as ever. But a new elegance -- less flash yet a greater sense of liberty -- was strongly in evidence.

In part, this may have been because Mstislav Rostropovich’s presence unmistakably pervaded the evening. With the famed Russian musician’s death in April, Ma has inherited his mantle as world’s most heralded cellist, and the first half of the recital might well have been dedicated to Rostropovich. Shostakovich’s Cello Sonata was a Rostropovich specialty, which he played often with the composer. Piazzolla’s “Le Grand Tango” was written for Rostropovich. And when it comes to Schubert’s “Arpeggione” Sonata, which began the evening, every cellist has to contend with the gorgeous recording Rostropovich made with composer Benjamin Britten as pianist.

A larger-than-life Rostropovich sang Schubert in a state of rapture, poured out his fervent Russian soul through Shostakovich and instinctively understood his tango as the art of shameless seduction. Ma’s tone, however, has always been on the lighter, more everyman side of the cello equation, and his Shostakovich was particularly loving.

I can’t, in fact, recall ever hearing anyone get so far past the horror in Shostakovich’s music and find a kind of sustained ethereal lyric peace in this breast-beating composer. Through his ability to produce a sweet sound that could almost disappear into thin air, Ma made the inevitable dramatic outbursts seem all but insignificant. Shostakovich is today in vogue partly, I think, because his devils were so vivid. Ma dared join the side of his angels, and the result was remarkable.

I prefer Ma with a pianist who is more equal partner than accompanist. Schubert wrote for duos, and Shostakovich’s piano part is showy. Stott projected poorly, often disappearing into the background. She had little feel for Piazzollaean cajolery; alas, it takes two to tango.

But after intermission, the British pianist unearthed a resource of Brazilian glitter that splendidly framed the cello in “Bodas de Prata” (Silver Wedding Anniversary) and Quatro Cantos (Four Songs) -- Egberto Gismondi’s arrangement for Ma of moody pieces he’d written with Geraldo Carneiro. Ma then tore into a cello arrangement of Franck’s popular Violin sonata.

The sonata, which also works on flute and other instruments, is so well known that even the Ma treatment has little new to offer. But impassioned playing is impassioned playing, and at least Ma’s improvisational freedom felt fresh. With Stott as straight man, Ma used the piano as trampoline from which he could take high-flying leaps and to which he could always expect a cushioned return. As journeys go, these flights of fancy felt fleeting, but they nevertheless reminded us of a cellist whose feet are happiest when not on the ground.

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mark.swed@latimes.com