"At the Vienna Musikverein – together with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra – Mäkelä's presence is already palpable in Arnold Schoenberg's lullaby-like "Verklärte Nacht" (Transfigured Night): Despite the opulence of the orchestral arrangement, in this exceptional late Romantic setting, the details and the individual gesture are important to him. Thus, he lends inner compactness {…}
"Intense and imbued with spirituality: Gubaidulina's 'Offertorium' is insanely good … The intensity of Julian Rachlin's violin playing fits perfectly, and the orchestral sound - with a glittering halo above the low strings in that chorale - is strikingly concise. Santa Vizine's tender tone is imbued with spirituality in her beautiful viola solo.”De Volkskrant, Merlijn Kerkohf, 27 {…}
"Pictures at an Exhibition in Maurice Ravel's brilliant orchestration has rarely been heard played with such verve and forward-looking power ... The thunderous witch’s ride “The Hut of Baba Yaga” led in a stringent build-up of tension into the fast-paced finale “The Great Gate of Kiev”, which Mäkelä dramaturgically cleverly designed by taking back the four-fold recurring {…}
" ... Klaus Mäkelä conducts a concert that is more a musical exploration than a complete programme, moving from Pierre Boulez's Initiale (in the year of his centenary) to Debussy, a religious work by Poulenc, and even Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition orchestrated by Ravel. The sheer diversity of these works invites us to examine their connections, in a spirit of witty musical {…}
"Mäkelä is someone who knows exactly what he wants musically, who has a clear concept and who can also communicate it … The uncompromisingness and attention to detail with which he approached the one-and-a-half-hour colossus of a symphony was astonishing."
Hamburger Abendblatt, Elisabeth Richter, 19 December 2024"The wonderfully differentiated and intimately performed Andante {…}
"Saturday night’s concert began with Verklärte Nacht, the Schoenberg piece. In its opening measures, it was small but perceptible - you could hear the music clearly … Mäkelä conducted with an admirable straightforwardness. The music was not overindulged. The players tucked into it, unafraid … And Mäkelä and his players gave a lesson in ethereality without prissiness. It {…}
