On today’s date in 2006, at the open-air Tanglewood Festival in the Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts, the Boston Symphony and cellist Yo-Yo Ma premiered a new cello concerto, entitled “Azul”–“blue” in Spanish–written by Osvaldo Golijov.

Golijov was born and grew up in Argentina, but his background–like his music–is very cosmopolitan: his parents were Romanian Jews who immigrated to Argentina, and when he was 23, Golijov himself immigrated to Israel. Three years later, he came to the U.S. to study with the American composer George Crumb at the University of Pennsylvania, and then settled in Massachusetts.

At first, Golijov imagined “Azul” as evoking his own experiences of hearing bucolic summertime Tanglewood concerts under a canopy of blue sky. But after its premiere, Golijov had second thoughts, and by the time Yo-Yo Ma finally recorded the work some 10 years later, Golijov had revised his concerto. 

Golijov said wanted to “earn” its blissful opening mood through a journey backwards through musical time and space, and the revised score backs up the cello with a neo-Baroque continuo comprised of a hyper-accordion (souped up with digital processing) and a battery of exotic percussion instruments like a wind whistle and goat hoof rattle.

Osvaldo Golijov (b. 1960): Azul (Yo-Yo Ma, cello; The Knights, Eric Jacobsen, cond.) Warner Classics 9029587521