Concertgebouw Orchestra – USA tour
“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 is not merely that I have never heard Verklärte Nacht better; I can’t imagine it better.”
The New Criterion, Jay Nordlinger, 25 November 2024
“ … Mäkelä delivered these end-of-an era masterpieces (Schönberg’s Verklärte Nacht and Mahler Symphony No. 1) in all their glory and desperation, aided by a band of musicians capable of making music jump off the printed page in ways rarely heard in these parts … All was executed on curves of expression that came together in one long arc, reproducing the cinematic focus-in and pull-back of Dehmel’s poem.”
New York Classical Review, David Wright, 24 November 2024
“With the physically extroverted Mäkelä bobbing, digging, punching and thwacking them on, the Concertgebouw’s musicians played superbly … Yet in some passages of the Schoenberg that were overstated, almost halting, you got a sense of Mäkelä’s shortcomings. He can be so deliberate, so obviously intent on creating precise rhythms and textures bar by bar, that some of the air can come out of the music.”
New York Times, Zachary Woolfe, 24 November 2024
“ … Mäkelä’s meteoric rise is not an accident of timing, nor clever career finagling from a press-savvy manager. Leading the Concertgebouw, he here gave a performance that was utterly instinctive and entirely musical … The audience left the concert hall a bit stunned, a bit changed, a bit remade.”
Financial Times, Clemency Burton-Hill, 26 November 2024
“Mäkelä gave hints in the Reid of the intimacy and energy he brings to the task; it’s the stuff that has so many people so excited. But his talent (and transparency) was on full display for the night’s heavier lifts from a pair of Russian contemporaries, one returning to his homeland (Prokofiev) and one departing (Rachmaninoff)”
Washington Post, Michael Andor Brodeur, 25 November 2024
PROGRAMME:
Washington – Kennedy Center (24 November)
Ellen Reid: “Body Cosmic”
Sergej Prokofiev: Violin Concerto No. 2
Sergei Rachmaninov: Symphony No. 2
Soloist: Lisa Batiashivili
New York – Carnegie Hall (23 November)
Ellen Reid: “Body Cosmic”
Sergej Prokofiev: Violin Concerto No. 2
Sergei Rachmaninov: Symphony No. 2
Soloist: Lisa Batiashivili
New York – Carnegie Hall (22 November)
Arnold Schönberg: “Verklärte Nacht”
Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 1, “Titan”
Naples, Florida – Hayes Hall (20 November)
Mikhail Glinka: Overture to “Ruslan and Ludmila”
Sergej Prokofiev: Violin Concerto No. 2
Sergei Rachmaninov: Symphony No. 2
Soloist: Lisa Batiashivili
Palm Beach – Kravis Center for the Performing Arts (19 November)
Sergej Prokofiev: Violin Concerto No. 2
Sergei Rachmaninov: Symphony No. 2
Soloist: Lisa Batiashivili
Orlando – Dr Philips Center (18 November)
Arnold Schönberg: “Verklärte Nacht”
Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 1, “Titan”
