Cristian Măcelaru first performed with Yo-Yo Ma a few years ago, at Tanglewood. After their first rehearsal with the orchestra, Măcelaru heard a knock at the door connecting his and Ma’s dressing rooms. Sure enough, Ma himself snuck in and beelined for Măcelaru. “I want to understand who you are, and where you’re coming from,” the cellist told him.

A musical answer comes in the form of George Enescu’s Romanian Rhapsody No. 1 — a tribute to Măcelaru’s homeland and to the composer who made its sounds known around the world. (For more on Măcelaru and Enescu, see “In Search of George Enescu,” on pp. 9–13.) 

Why this rhapsody specifically? According to Măcelaru, it references a lot of Romanian tradition — dances, rhythms — in a short amount of time. “It’s basically a 11-minute folk piece,” he says, albeit one “that is highly sophisticated and incredibly virtuosic for everyone in the orchestra.” Programming it on a concert that also features Ma “is my gift back to him,” Măcelaru says. 

Măcelaru paired the Rhapsody with Elgar’s Cello Concerto, the same piece he and Ma performed together at Tanglewood. The concerto is solidly in Ma’s wheelhouse, of course, but Măcelaru also thinks of it as “the most tragic” of Elgar’s works. “You know, this was a composition written after the war,” he says. “This concerto brings back so many thoughts about human suffering, and the fragility of the human spirit.”

He sees Brahms’ Tragic Overture in the same vein. All that solemnity might seem odd for a gala concert. Măcelaru sees it differently. “What I would say is that neither the Elgar nor the Brahms speaks of the tragedy aspect,” he says. “[They] speak of the sensitivity that is a result of something truly traumatic in one’s life …. There’s an intimacy that it would be beautiful for the audience to be part of.”

—Hannah Edgar