Fresh and flamboyant: Mäkelä and the Orchestre de Paris at the Proms

Klaus Mäkelä conducts the Orchestre de Paris

Double basses of the Orchestre de Paris

Off-stage bells in the Symphonie fantastique

Orchestre de Paris in the Royal Albert Hall

By Mark Thomas, 04 September 2024

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“the best cardio workout without actually going to the gym”

Reviewed at Royal Albert Hall, London on 3 September 2024

Debussy, Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune

Stravinsky, Petrushka

Berlioz, Symphonie fantastique, Op.14

Jean-Baptiste Doulcet, Piano

Orchestre de Paris

Klaus Mäkelä, Conductor

Orchestre de Paris and Mäkelä wow Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw

Max Lima, 18th March

Under its Music Director Klaus Mäkelä, the French orchestra returns to the Concertgebouw for an exhilarating concert with pianist Anna Vinnitskaya.

****1

New season, new horizons: Salonen opens the Elbphilharmonie

Mengguang Huang, 3rd September

Salonen and the Orchestre de Paris opened the Elbphilharmonie season with a vivid journey from Strauss’s dramatic energy, through a reflective new Horn Concerto, to Sibelius’s luminous, precise grandeur.

****1

Rach 4 redefined: Mäkelä and Yunchan Lim set a new benchmark in Seoul

SangKwon Lee, 11th June

In Yunchan Lim’s hands the score to Rachmaninov's Fourth Piano Concerto emerges as a small revelation, conspicuously succeeding where so many others have floundered.

*****

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

Mark Pullinger, 23rd February

Maurice Ravel the orchestrator takes centre stage at the Musikverein in an evening of descriptive aural painting.

****1

Khatia Buniatishvili in search of her lost fingers

Alain Lompech, 30th October

Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto turns out to be a shipwreck for the Georgian pianist, despite an admirable Orchestre de Paris and conductor (Kirill Karabits).

*1111

The Orchestre de Paris dazzles in Boston

Kevin Wells, 17th March

Yunchan Lim joins Klaus Mäkelä and the Orchestre de Paris for a Rachmaninov Second Piano Concerto full of dynamic contrast.

****1

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Mark Thomas

A lifelong devotee of classical music, Mark caught the bug after listening to The Planets, The Rite of Spring and Beethoven’s Fifth when he was knee-high to a grasshopper. He has degrees in non-musical subjects and currently works as a Chartered Governance Professional, but these have proved to be mere distractions from the wonders of sonatas, concertos and symphonies. He has been reviewing for Bachtrack since 2016, plays viola and violin (very shakily) and used to sing a bit (even more shakily).

Fresh and flamboyant: Klaus Mäkelä and the Orchestre de Paris at the BBC Proms