For his latest release, Klaus Mäkelä conducts two classic showpieces

When Zell Music Director Designate Klaus Mäkelä returns in the fall to lead the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in concerts on Oct. 16-18, the program will feature two works by Berlioz, Symphonie fantastique and Harold in Italy.

Symphonie fantastique also anchors Mäkelä’s latest release on Decca, recorded with the Orchestre de Paris, for which he has been music director since 2021. Of the recording, London’s Guardian observes: "Mäkelä conducts France’s premier orchestra in two classic showpieces: Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique and Ravel’s La valse."

The disc, released last month in Europe, is now available domestically, including at the CSO’s Symphony Store and on its digital platform online.

In a review of Mäkelä leading the Orchestre de Paris in a BBC Proms performance last summer of Symphonie fantastique, shortly before the Decca recording was made, the Guardian wrote: “Mäkelä is a star, no doubt, and the proof of it is that he makes his players look and sound like stars, too. ... Mäkelä had us all hanging on every note within seconds.” 

Meanwhile, the site Bachtrack described the performance as “five movements of flamboyance and subtlety,” and the site the Arts Desk called the finale “the culmination of something at last truly extraordinary.”

In a statement for Decca, Mäkelä said of Symphonie fantastique: “Berlioz’s masterpiece has a very special meaning for the Orchestre de Paris. It was one of the works that Charles Munch performed and recorded as the orchestra’s first music director in 1967, and it has remained core to their repertoire ever since. I have had the privilege of performing Symphonie fantastique with these wonderful musicians on numerous occasions, both at home and on tour, and it amazes me how fresh the music still feels today, nearly 200 years after it was composed.”

In its four-star review of the Decca disc, the Guardian added, “It’s all played with consummate skill by an orchestra who are clearly responsive to their conductor’s every move, as they were in Royal Albert Hall [the venue for the BBC Proms concert]. Mäkelä’s shaping of Berlioz’s music, from the gentle, vibrato-less violins at the beginning to the careering witches’ dance of the finale, remains highly colored and full of impact.”

Of La valse, the Guardian observed, Mäkelä and the orchestra “are again on sparkling form. Mäkelä keeps the tempo whirling and the momentum rising; by the end, the whole thing feels held together by centrifugal force alone.”

With the CSO at Orchestra Hall this fall, the viola soloist will be Antoine Tamestit for Harold in Italy, Berlioz’s Byronic tone poem. Subscriptions on sale now, with individual tickets available starting Aug. 6.