SIBELIUS Tapiola
LISZT Piano Concerto No. 1
R. STRAUSS Ein Heldenleben
Yuja Wang (piano)
Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra
Klaus Mäkelä (conductor)
Who is Klaus Mäkelä? At 26, the Finnish conductor has been appointed to lead three major European orchestras since 2018. He became the third-ever conductor Decca has ever signed (after Solti and Chailly). He catapulted to major stardom in 2022 - how and why? I find his Sibelius cycle pretty uneven, ranging from truly revelatory to downright boring, so I have to turn up live to discover more. Pretty demanding programme tonight - Sibelius' mysterious, pre-Järvenpää silence large-scale masterpiece "Tapiola" and Strauss' epic "Ein Heldenleben". Being a cellist himself, he seems to have a penchant for emphasising the lower strings, which has done wonders in revealing the subtle tectonic syncopations in Sibelius' music. This "Tapiola" was the most riveting and lively rendition among all versions I heard this week and by the end of it I realised why everyone likes him. He has a sense of textural clarity I have not heard since Boulez. He lets everybody in the orchestra shine through, making every orchestral work essentially a massive chamber piece with all internal tensions attached, yet somehow he manages to keep everything constantly flowing as an organic whole. Most importantly, visibly, everybody on stage looks like they are having the time of their lives, and that sense of pure joy just radiates through. It's magic, but also feels inappropriate to hear Sibelius played this happily. Whether this works equally well in Strauss is a matter of taste. It either comes across as being too light for a late Romantic work, or it's a completely revelatory experience of discovering the textural complexity of the work. I have mixed feelings about it, but it was mostly positive. Top notch playing, though some people would argue, for a tone poem, it's not dramatic enough. Sandwiched between the two works was PC1 by the father of tone poems, Liszt. Yuja Wang doing pyrotechnics, nothing could go wrong, and I was positively surprised that she offered a lot more subtlety and colours than I last heard her, especially in the very effective quiet passages. The synergy between soloist and orchestra was strong, and they actually struck the right sonic balance for the RAH acoustics. Mäkelä is the real deal, and we have a lot to look forward to. I hope he does not burn out or sell out.
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