"Mäkelä's Mahler is out of this world … He opened the Concertgebouw Orchestra's subscription season on Thursday with a masterful interpretation of Mahler's Third Symphony. I realize you have to be careful with words like ‘masterful', but it was the only word that came to mind while listening to this exhilarating performance … all led in fantastic {…}
Shostakovich Symphony No. 5:“In a truly magnificent performance Mäkelä squeezed out every drop of energy at key moments, the burnished Oslo heavy brass and stormy unison strings notching up the turmoil … keeping undercurrents turbulent, he struck the ambiguous balance with thrilling perfection.”
***** Bachtrack.com, David Smythe, 23 August 2023
“The opening movement {…}
"What could follow all this aural splendour and magic? More of the same but taken to the nth degree, was the answer, as the BBC SO and Chorus came together for that Proms favourite William Walton’s brazenly dramatic Belshazzar’s Feast. Both were on terrific form, both gave their all under Mäkelä’s rivetingly incisive direction."The Telegraph, Ivan Hewett, 5 August 2023"Energy {…}
Orchestre de Paris at the Aix en Provence Festival
“By its virtuosity, conviction and evocative power, the interpretation of the Orchestre de Paris and its conductor Klaus Mäkelä is indisputable … The brilliance, liveliness, sense of contrasts, the suppleness of the line animated and made The Firebird shine with a thousand colours. The imperious precision of the rhythm, the panache, the humour gave wings to Petrushka. {…}
"Throughout the symphony (Shostakovich Symphony No. 5), Mäkelä has a fierce drive forward with violent climaxes and biting sarcasm. In the slow third movement, which can often stall, it is the lyrical nerve of the strings that drives the music forward."Aftenposten, Aksel Dalmo, 28 May 2023"Mäkelä focused a lot of attention on the Oslo strings and they played with high energy, but {…}
"The Adagio alone could sum up the (Leningrad) symphony with its mixture of tense lyricism, desolation and warlike march, whose alternation is perfectly organised by Klaus Mäkelä's clear and precise conducting in a vast lamento where the strings in particular stand out, with magnificent double basses, a viola section that will bring tears to your eyes, a superb oboe-English horn duet {…}
