A high Klaus operation: Mäkelä and the Oslo Philharmonic play Tchaikovsky

The Oslo Philharmonic and Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony go back a long way: their 1984 recording with Maris Jansons remains near the top of critics’ choices, forty years on. Hearing them perform this symphony last night, at their Konserthus home with Chief Conductor Klaus Mäkelä, it was striking quite how comfortable this orchestra was with the music, particularly so in the third movement pizzicato, which the string players attacked with impish delight. For once, this was a Scherzo that really did mean a joke, an old family chestnut that one never tires of repeating.

The Oslo Phil and Mäkelä’s relationship is much shorter (he wasn’t even born until more than a decade after that recording was made), but it seems to have burgeoned nicely in the four years he has been at the helm. His style is short on detailed management (whether or not he bothers to beat time seems to vary according to whim) and long on histrionics: full of grand gestures, tossing of locks and deep stares in to the eyes of some particular player. Some of the musicians were obviously lapping it up; others seemed to maintain a level of ironic detachment. For sure, the Oslo audience loved it; this was a short concert with just the symphony, to be followed today by the full fat overture-concerto-symphony version, and he received an enthusiastic reception from a hall packed to the gills. 

The concert was also odd to watch in that the strings made no effort to synchronise their upper body movements, each swaying in uncoordinated directions. But the music told a different story, and if you focused only on the bow movements, you realised that they were impeccably in sync, producing precision of phrasing and evenness of sound, with remarkable warmth coming from the cellos.

The woodwinds were very strong, with the five note downward phrases that are traded between them – nearly a glissando effect – coming through clearly and deliciously. The bassoon lines which follow from the first brass-heavy fate motif were remarkable; the oboe solo at the beginning of the second movement even more so. The brass produced suitable impact in the various repetitions of that motif. This is a symphony which responds well to extreme dynamic range and the orchestra handled its pianissimi as well as the big climaxes. 

Watching Mäkelä certainly has its quirks, but one couldn’t fault the quality of the sound the Oslo Philharmonic produced. And while other orchestras might perhaps extract a fraction more Russian angst than we heard last night, this was still a very satisfying performance.