Oslo Philharmonic

Two years after his brilliant debut with the Royal Concertgebouworkest Amsterdam, shooting star Klaus Mäkelä will perform a programme with the Oslo Philharmonic in 2024 that includes the much played and frequently misunderstood Fifth Symphony by Dmitri Shostakovich – and a dialogue with birds.

A career in the fast lane: The intensity of Klaus Mäkelä’s conducting amazes the audience – and his spectacular concerts have proved a global sensation. “What I really care about”, he says, ”is having musical homes where I work extensively and breathe together with the musicians.” The young Finn was appointed Chief Conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra at the age of 24, also directs the Orchestre de Paris and is Chief Conductor Designate of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam. For his visit to Berlin with the Oslo Philharmonic, Mäkelä will bring a programme that includes the famous “Cantus Arcticus” by Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara, which in 1972 had an orchestra enter into a musical dialogue with birdsongs recorded in the Arctic Circle, before the piece “Vista” by composer Kaija Saariaho, who died in the summer of 2023, explores how music can create visual impressions. Well known to be impressive is Dmitri Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony, which, ever since its triumphant premiere on 21 November 1937 in what was then Leningrad, has been one of the composer’s most frequently performed works. When Shostakovich was regarded as politically unreliable by the leading cadre surrounding Stalin, he supposedly rehabilitated himself with this major work based on what the composer chose to call a “practical creative response by a Soviet artist to justified criticism.” The score takes official demands for monumental scale and folkloric character to the point of absurdity with numerous cryptic musical quotations.