Bach Trios—Yo-Yo Ma, cello; Chris Thile, mandolin; Edgar Meyer, bass (Nonesuch 588933)
These three famous musicians have played together before—with Stuart Duncan, they won a Grammy for The Goat Rodeo Sessions in 2012. Here they play their own arrangements of Bach keyboard works plus the Viola da gamba Sonata No. 3. Says Yo-Yo Ma: “How often do you work with people who are master virtuosos and also master improvisers and composers, who know at least two musical traditions unbelievably well? It’s just extraordinary when you have people who can actually show on their instruments what they’re thinking at any moment, without a delay. As soon as you think it, it gets transferred in your neuromusculature immediately into sound.”