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The reopening of Notre Dame de Paris was an emotional affair that featured musical performances from a variety of highly respected artists, but the most thrilling of the night may have been Yo-Yo Ma. While the cameras showed off the beautiful renovation work conducted in the last five years, the world’s premier cellist showed that the beauty of Notre Dame’s acoustics survived the fire.
Ma played the iconic prelude from Bach’s “Cello Suite No.1,” a piece of music that is widely regarded as one of the most peaceful of Bach’s compositions, and one that has become nearly synonymous with Yo-Yo Ma over a career that spans nearly seven decades. Yo-Yo Ma, 68, has been entertaining the world with his virtuoso talent since he was just a little kid.
It’s as fun to watch as it is to hear Ma play this 18th-century cello solo, as he’s performed the piece so many times that you can tell he barely has to think about where his fingers are going. While there are moments in which you can see his eyes close as he focuses on a particularly emotional moment of the song, for the majority of the performance, he appears to be just looking around at the beautiful renovation work. At one point he even looks like he’s admiring the new way the ceiling is lit.
Of the reconstruction of Notre Dame de Paris, Yo-Yo Ma wrote on his YouTube page:
“I was so moved to witness the reopening of Notre-Dame de Paris. It’s an example of what the combined generosity, skill, and will of a people can accomplish, of humans choosing collaboration and creativity instead of division and destruction. I’m reminded that we always have that choice, that it’s a choice that has been with us since the beginning, a fundamental paradox of the human experiment."
While Notre Dame had been closed since 2019, it has only been about two years since Yo-Yo Ma last played at the French monument Cathedral. In 2022, he performed a solo rendition of Schubert’s beloved “Ave Maria,” seated on a balcony overlooking the scaffolding of the Notre Dame reconstruction site, a moment he described as “a privilege.”
Hear more fine performances from Yo-Yo Ma, here.
