Concertgebouworkest, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg
“Dmitri Shostakovich begins his Sixth Symphony from 1939 with a painful song of cellos, violas and woodwinds. And already here, in the first bars, one can experience everything that will define this remarkable concert. It is the warm and silky sound of the Concertgebouw Orchestra, the unconditional will to create together. And the energy and precision with which Klaus Mäkelä takes up this concentration and models the symphony’s stark changes of mood: the gloom and oppression in the first movement, but also the contrived cheerfulness in the Allegro, with which Shostakovich caricatures the compulsion to rejoice imposed by the Stalin regime and turns it into something garish.”
NDR Radio, Marcus Stäbler, 14 November 2021
“Tchaikovsky continued what had begun so wonderfully. Mäkelä let the music speak, pulsate, falter and reflect on its greatness and power. Tense silence pervaded the hall after the final motif died away, seemingly endless and just as dominated by Mäkelä’s charisma as everything else in this sensational concert.”
Hamburger Abendblatt, Joachim Mische, 14 November 2021
Programme:
Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony No. 6
Pyotr Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6