"What we have here is a telling snapshot of Shostakovich’s symphonic journey with all its socio-political implications. With the Fourth Symphony we tread the path he might have taken, with the Fifth we glimpse apparent compliance with a nod to the great Tchaikovsky, and the Sixth is flat-out wilful deception. He’d learned to work the Soviet system.
"This has to be the {…}
"La Philharmonie accueillait ce 11 septembre le concert de rentrée de l’Orchestre de Paris devant une salle comble. Depuis ses débuts en 2021, l’effet Klaus Mäkelä, qui entame sa quatrième saison de directeur musical auprès de la phalange symphonique parisienne, n’a cessé de croître et de se multiplier … Dansant et énergique, l'"Allegro con brio" (Beethoven Eroica) {…}
Shostakovich Symphonies 4, 5 & 6 album review – BBC Music Magazine
“What’s especially stunning about Klaus Mäkelä’s journey with the Oslo Philharmonic, who adore him, is the foregrounding of the lyrical. Every time I hear the apparently ramshackle Fourth Symphony, I grasp its symphonic shape better, and how much more so when what you might call the vast first movement’s second subject group tries to sing its way through the sulphurous {…}
"Each of these three storytelling works unfolded with engaging narrative spark, but there were so many relishable moments within them: the flute solos in the Debussy, blooming a little more sensuous every time; the spatial effects in the open-air scenes of the Stravinsky, with some things sounding exhilaratingly close, others distant; the way in which the violins played the opening {…}
“Schnell, grell, brutal: Mäkelä beschönigt nichts, eröffnet die Möglichkeit, die Partitur politisch zu hören, als Ringen des Individuums um persönliche Freiheit in den Zeiten von Stalins Terrorregime. Da berührt es zutiefst, wenn sich nach endlosen Brutalitäten im Kopfsatz das Flötensolo in zartester Verletzlichkeit erhebt. Und der Dirigent vermag die Intensität noch zu {…}
Shostakovich Symphonies 4, 5 & 6 album review – NRK radio
“Terror, suffering and fantastic music. The Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra is off to a flying start with its ambitious recording project ... The first album shows an orchestra and a conductor who are fully up to speed with the situation, and then some ... In my opinion, Mäkelä succeeds best in the enigmatic Symphony No. 6 in B minor (1939), where Shostakovich breaks with all {…}
