Maya Beiser’s “Blackstar” for Cello

Classical cellist Maya Beiser converted the entire Blackstar album into a classical-style symphony featuring, of course, the cello. I’m still in the process of listening to the entire album but wanted to single out “Blackstar.” I’ll revisit the entire album later.

Bowie’s Blackstar album is the nearest he came to jazz. I’ve head Bowie, and specifically the song, “Blackstar” converted into classical before, but what Beiser does is so seamless it seems that this was the music’s originally intended form. I’m writing this after attending a classical concert, in which we heard the music of Beethoven and Elgar among others, as audiences have for hundreds of years. The orchestra’s work was not framed as covers— the Chautauqua Symphony’s Beethoven cover. I’m a casual classical fan and as I have written before, know nothing about music. But I like a classical performance based on the virtuosity of the musicians and the often subtle interpretations of music that I have sometimes heard many times.
Is this now where we are with Bowie? Will we be listening to interpretations of his music 100 years from now? More than cover bands or covers from rock artists, what Beiser does here suggests that we very well might.

What stands out about Beiser’s “Blackstar” more than with the other pieces is that it sounds so much like the music of Bowie’s version that I’m expecting his voice at any moment. This is an illusion. Beiser’s cello has replaced Bowie’s voice. For whatever reason this is more apparent to me on the other songs.

In a recent interview that focused on her latest album of Bach’s music, Beiser said of Bowie that she still cries because she misses him: “He was my hero because he refused to ever settle. He was constantly recreating himself as an artist, and that to me is such a great thing.”

In don’t know if potentially endless interpretations of Bowie’s work constitute “recreation” or doing “the same thing over and over,” as Beiser says Bowie didn’t do, elsewhere in the interview. Whatever the case, at the moment I’m somewhat transfixed with what she did with the material.