Cleveland Orchestra

“The Cleveland Orchestra’s performance of Beethoven’s Symphony no. 7 was stunning, with TCO and Mäkelä completely on the same wavelength. … The members of The Cleveland Orchestra themselves gave Mäkelä the ultimate, and rare, accolade of putting down their instruments to applaud the young visiting conductor. Mäkelä in tandem with The Cleveland Orchestra were simply sensational.”

Bachtrack

“Makela himself had a fairly high bar to reach on the second half of the program, conducting Beethoven’s Symphony No.7, a beloved and well-known work about which almost every aficionado has an opinion. Consider that bar reached.”

The Cleveland Plain Dealer

“The concert ended with a barn-burning account of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony where Mäkelä’s insights into the piece made it sound newly-minted. He called for robust accents, brought often-submerged details to the surface, and created a general sense of well-controlled abandon that gave the musicians room to create luminous colors. Combining the best features of a thermostat and a metronome, Mäkelä has an uncanny way of turning the heat up without rushing the tempo … His approach to the Beethoven inspired the Cleveland Orchestra musicians to lay down their instruments at the end and join the audience in riotous applause. That doesn’t happen every day.

Cleveland Classical.com

Programme:
Messiaen: Les offrandes oubliées
Prokofiev: Violin Concerto No. 2 (soloist Augustin Hadelich)
Beethoven: Symphony No. 7