Monday, January 26, 2009
National Skyline Yo-Yo Ma: Even Better Than the Real Thing
Posted by Steve Haruch on Mon, Jan 26, 2009 at 6:06 AM
You've likely heard by now that the quartet of musicians who played at Obama's presidential inauguration (Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, Gabriela Montero and Anthony McGill) were playing along to a recording of themselves, and that the music we all heard on the television broadcast was not live. Why? It was just too damn cold for relatively fragile instruments to stay in tune. In fact, it was so ass cold they were worried the piano strings might break. So, two of the world's most famous musicians (and their cohorts) faked it. Big titty.
"This isn't a matter of Milli Vanilli," said a spokeswoman for the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies. Of course not. It's not like they got a bunch of hotties to pretend they were classical musicians. Most people I talked to about it this weekend brought up Ashlee Simpson's backing track debacle on Saturday Night Live. ("I'm so sorry! My band started playing the wrong song!") Unlike in Ashlee Simpson's case, though, no one's doubting that these people are capable of playing the song, it's just that folks feel a little cheated. Nevermind how cheated they would have felt if they had actually been forced to listen to instruments that were too cold to stay in tune or maintain proper intonation.
That being said, what's funniest to me is how hard everybody sold the performance as being a live one. There were even microphones set up (with wind screens, no less) in order to help convince people who notice such things. And then there was the way Yo-Yo Ma kept smiling at his fellow players, like, "Hey, isn't it awesome how we're all playing this awesome song together right now? Fuck yeah!" (Granted, Ma almost always does that when he plays.)
Or maybe he was being ironical, in a way, magnifying the lie as a way of trying to deflect its importance. Like when I saw Ghostfinger play as a duo last week. They performed to a recording, too--and when the loping pedal steel part began on "Pretending to Die," Richie called out, "Ladies and gentlemen, Paul Niehaus!"
Which was both true and a lie at the same time.
Comments (1)
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Well, I was there, and at the time was actually talking with my girlfriend as Yo Yo and Co. were playing, "How in god's name are they keeping their instruments in tune?" It was as cold as fuck, so I really think that we should all just move on with our lives and enjoy the wonderful John Williams piece.
On a further note,the Marine Band played live, but you could really tell they were having tuning issues.
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