Yo-Yo Ma's face, turning away to listen to the balance, is set at the intersection of two diagonals. Your gaze floats down, with those dark watercolor tones of green, blue and grey from the top right, then you make a right-angled turn to follow his left hand as it vibrates, skips and bounds down the finger-board.

Everything is carefully balanced, as it must be for a great performance on a stringed instrument. Yo-Yo's recordings of the Brahms and Beethoven Sonatas, in a sublime partnership with Emmanuel Ax, were the principal inspiration for this painting in 1992, painted with fond appreciation of this great musician, teacher, humorist and philosopher.