Klaus Mäkelä and the Orchestre de Paris paint vivid pictures in the Musikverein

Maurice Ravel’s greatest work is Pictures at an Exhibition. Discuss. In his 150th anniversary, don’t overlook the role of Ravel the orchestrator. Most of his orchestral works began as compositions for piano. Pictures is no different, except that the piano original was by Modest Mussorgsky. The result is arguably more Ravel than Mussorgsky, the rugged Russian clothed in sophisticated French couture. It provided a suitable showpiece for the Klaus Mäkelä – in dapper white tie and tails himself – and the Orchestre de Paris in the second of two Musikverein programmes this weekend juxtaposing Ravel and his Ballets Russes associate, Igor Stravinsky.

As Mussorgsky wanders between exhibits by his friend Viktor Hartmann, each Promenade has a different feel, painted by Ravel in different colours. Mäkelä’s broad pacing and Frédéric Mellardi’s suave trumpet solo set the tone – a classy Parisian gallery, perhaps the Musée d'Orsay. Other Promenades were more purposeful, some more reflective.

The works themselves got the full array of Parisian colour: slithering strings in a creepy Gnomus; smoky saxophone in an unhurried Vecchio castello; double basses sawing away powerfully in Bydło, the ox cart, even as it trundled off into the distance.

Not every exhibit fully came alive. The children playing in the Tuileries Gardens were too well-behaved and, although there was a massive string sound for the pompous Samuel Goldenberg, Schmuÿle was a trifle shy. But the Parisians ended strongly, a hell-for-leather Baba Yaga followed by a Great Gate of Kiev where Mäkelä emphasised its noble qualities – a gorgeous woodwind choir intoning their Orthodox chants – rather than blasting the Musikverein with decibels (although audience members positioned right next to the giant church bell may well disagree..,)

Ravel’s orchestration of his own four-hand piano suite Ma mère l’Oye (Mother Goose) is more modest in scale, but made a charming concert opener. Mäkelä, bending his knees, coaxed hushed pianissimos from the violas in Petit Poucet (Tom Thumb) and, in Les Entretiens de la Belle et de la Bête, drew the contrasts between clarinettist Pascal Moraguès’ elegant waltzing Beauty and Amrei Liebold’s galumphing contrabassoon Beast. Laideronnette, Impératrice des Pagodes was wreathed in perfume and, after a honeyed solo by leader Nikola Nikolov, Le Jardin féerique glittered in the tender, tear-inducing closing pages.

In 1911, Ravel expanded Ma mère l’Oye into a ballet (about twice the suite’s length). The centrepiece of this concert was a Stravinsky ballet composed that same year, Petrushka. Even in the 1947 version Stravinsky made for smaller orchestra, the Parisians almost spilled off the Musikverein stage, piano and celesta parked at opposite wings. 

Of Stravinsky’s trilogy of early Ballets Russes masterpieces, Petrushka is widely acknowledged as the hardest to conduct, yet Mäkelä’s precision and strong grip on the score resulted in a terrific account full of rhythmic snap, not a quality I readily associate with this orchestra. At the Shrovetide Fair, the strings attacked their downbows in the Dance of the Coachmen with vigour, finding their Stravinskian groove, fierce bass and cello pizzicatos exploding off the page, savage yet joyous. Comic moments were relished – a contrabassoon fart eliciting audience laughter, the bassoon’s faltering accompaniment to the Ballerina’s Waltz as if in possession of two left feet – yet full rein was given to the score’s drama. It’s easy to forgive the odd smudged woodwind note when the playing is so characterful. The ballet ended with a theatrical flourish, the tambourine dropped, signifying Petrushka’s death, before spectral strings and a lacerating trumpet as the puppet angrily waves his fists. One could envisage the action, another vivid picture in this most visual of concerts.