Great pianist as he undoubtedly is, Arcadi Volodos is a cool customer, particularly when it comes to Tchaikovsky. Clearly in no hurry to record, he avoids all tub-thumping Romantic rhetoric and nonchalantly bypasses every difficulty with an ease that can leave you open-mouthed. For his stream of seven Rachmaninov encores Volodos, almost as if released from a pleasant if over-familiar task, allows his playing to blossom with an altogether fuller fragrance and expansiveness.

Classic Yo-Yo is a greatest-hits collection for the famous Yo-Yo Ma, something he's fully entitled to after two decades of runaway success. It's "Classic Yo-Yo" in the sense that it presents well-loved and presumably durable selections from a variety of Yo-Yo Ma albums, not because it inclines toward Ma's straight-ahead classical recordings. In fact the division between classical and crossover pieces on the disc is about 50/50, and they tend to alternate. The transition from Bach to Astor Piazzolla works OK, but that from Appalachian Journey mastermind Edgar Meyer to Brahms might be a bit jarring. A greatest-hits album is a tough item for Ma because his recordings are so different from one another and involve such a variety of other musicians. As Ma himself says in an interview included in the liner material, "Collaboration is the best part of what I do, it's what I enjoy most about being a musician".