An aquatic programme with Klaus Mäkelä and the Swedish RSO

By Aksel Tollåli, 31 August 2019

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“a delightful exercise in Viennese post-Romantic excess”

Reviewed at Berwaldhallen, Stockholm on 26 August 2019

Zemlinsky, Die Seejungfrau (The Mermaid), symphonic fantasia after Hans Christian Andersen

Bloch, Schelomo, Hebrew Rhapsody for cello

Debussy, La Mer

Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra

Klaus Mäkelä, Conductor

Truls Mørk, Cello

The Swedish RSO provides a flashy finish for Dvořák’s Prague

Frank Kuznik, 25th September

Daniel Harding and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra bring their own fireworks to the festival finale.

****1

Handel's Messiah streamed from the Baltic Sea Festival

Sandra Bowdler, 18th September

Reinhard Goebel conducts a perfectly fine, straight-down-the-line Messiah as Sweden re-engages with live audiences.

***11

A Baltic phoenix: Esa-Pekka Salonen brings Stockholm back to life

Tristan Labouret, 9th September

After hosting 18 months of concerts without audience, Berwaldhallen comes back to life with the Baltic Sea Festival and its phenomenal opening concert as intelligent as it is overwhelming.

*****

Elegant Mozart and monumental Schubert from Blomstedt in Stockholm

Cameron Kelsall, 20th November

The inexhaustible maestro shared the stage with Johan Dalene, an exciting violinist seven decades his junior.

*****

Mäkelä shapes Sibelius persuasively in Stockholm’s Berwaldhallen

Edward Sava-Segal, 13th November

Mäkelä brought out the harmonic inventiveness and the unexpected lyrical character of the music.

****1

A persuasively dark Don Giovanni from Swedish Radio

David Karlin, 14th June

Andrew Staples creates an austere, monochrome semi-staging that's strangely appropriate to the times; Peter Mattei and John Lundgren lead an excellent cast.

****1

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Aksel Tollåli

Aksel is currently studying towards a degree in musicology at the University of Oslo. At the moment he is an exchange student at Goldsmiths College in London. He is also a choral singer and a trombonist. His musical interests include 20th-cenury French music, Baroque opera and the music of Richard Strauss.

On the waterfront: an aquatic programme with Klaus Mäkelä and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra