You're listening to Song Exploder,
where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made.
I'm Rishikesh Hirway.
My name's Yo-Yo Ma.
The Prelude came into my life when I was four years old.
It was literally the first piece of music I learned.
I think I've performed the Prelude a hundred times, maybe more.
And 58 years later, I'm still learning.
Yo-Yo Ma is perhaps the most famous and well-loved cellist in the world.
He was born in Paris in 1955.
His family moved to the U.S. when he was seven.
He played for President Kennedy that year.
He played at Carnegie Hall for the first time when he was 16.
He's won 18 Grammys, and he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
For this special episode of Song Exploder, the last episode of this year,
Yo-Yo Ma is going to break down this piece,
which he didn't create, but he's performed so many times.
It's the prelude from Johann Sebastian Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 in G major.
It's one of the most famous pieces of music written for the cello.
Yo-Yo Ma first recorded the Bach cello suites in 1983 at age 27.