Klaus Mäkelä Pyotr Tchaikovsky Dmitri Shostakovich

Klaus Mäkelä Dmitri Shostakovich

“It was immediately clear that this first symphony by Shostakovich was the living, individual and striking work of a composer with an original approach,” said Nikolai Malko, who conducted the Leningrad premiere of Shostakovich’ Symphony No. 1.Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) celebrated the 12 May 1926, the day he heard his own symphony in the concert hall, as his second birthday. The symphony was a huge success and soon gained international recognition—the year after, the Berlin Philharmonic played it.One can hear glimpses of sources of inspiration such as Mahler and Stravinsky in the symphony, but it is a new and unmistakable composer’s voice that shines through with strong contrasts, beautiful parts, violent outbursts, humor, grotesque whimsy, and, in all things, sparkling craftsmanship.“I don't myself quite know why the quotations are there, but I could not, could not, not include them,” Shostakovich told his friend Isaak Gliman about the quotes in his Symphony No. 15. The symphony is a cornucopia of references both to the history of music and to the composer’s own work.Shostakovich wrote Symphony No. 15 in the summer of 1971. During the 45 years since his first symphony, the Soviet government had made his life difficult for periods. Towards the end of his life, he often spoke cautiously and ambiguously, even about his own music. Shostakovich has described his first movement as a toy shop with memories from childhood, a protest against death. The third movement is brisk and moody, while the first, second, and fourth movements have a more melancholic and introspective feel, like a wistful farewell to the symphonies.

Classical Hour Klaus Mäkelä Dmitri Shostakovich

In 1955, Dmitri Shostakovich planned to write a symphony for the 50th anniversary of the Russian Revolution of 1905. Symphony No. 11 was not ready until the 40th anniversary of the 1917 Russian Revolution in 1957, but the symphony was still named “The Year 1905”.On the surface, the symphony is in line with the authorities’ view. Still, Shostakovich’s use of freedom songs from the prison gave many associations to current events: the composer is said to have suggested that the music was a response to the Soviet Union’s brutal invasion of Hungary in 1956.The symphony opens with the eerie atmosphere in front of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg on the eve of the revolution. The second movement describes the brutal massacre on “the bloody Sunday”. The third movement is based on a revolutionary mournful march, while the powerful final movement ambiguously celebrates the revolution’s future triumph.

Works by Dmitri Shostakovich

Works by Dmitri Shostakovich

Klaus Mäkelä

Wiener Philharmoniker | Klaus Mäkelä

28-year-old Klaus Mäkelä, already chief conductor of four orchestras, has been invited by the Vienna Philharmonic. His debut tour with them includes a stop in Cologne, featuring Mahler's 6th Symphony. This powerful masterpiece, while tragic, allows for indulgence in beauty and combines otherworldly devotion with a longing for hymnic transfiguration.

Dmitry Matvienko Eldbjørg Hemsing Hjalmar Borgstrøm Pyotr Tchaikovsky

Hjalmar Borgstrøm (1864–1925) was one of Kristiania’s (today’s Oslo) most prominent music personalities at the start of the 20th century. He was a highly respected music critic, and with symphonic poems inspired by late German romanticism, he became one of the critical composers of his time. Borgstrøm wrote his Violin Concerto in G Major in 1914. It was premiered at the event celebrating the Constitution’s 100th anniversary and only performed a few times in the next hundred years. Lately, Eldbjørn Hemsing has contributed to re-establishing the concerto in the classical repertoire and recorded it in 2018. In 1865, Pyotr Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) completed his music studies, he got his first job as a music teacher and his music was performed in public for the first time. The following year, his confidence was high enough for him to take on his biggest challenge yet: writing a symphony.“No other work cost so much toil and so much suffering,” said his brother Modest about the project. During the summer of 1866, Pyotr worked day and night, suffering from trouble sleeping, hallucinations and such intense headaches that he thought he was going to die. Since then he never worked at night again.The melancholic but lively Symphony No. 1 in G minor with the subtitle Winter Daydreams was finished later that year and premiered in 1868. The first movement, “Dreams of a Winter Journey”, paints frozen landscapes with Tchaikovsky’s unmistakable brush.

Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra / Klaus Mäkelä

There are few orchestras that can boast as long a Mahler tradition as the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra from Amsterdam. Even during Gustav Mahler’s lifetime, the orchestra regularly performed his symphonies and helped the composer achieve the fame he enjoys to this day. Klaus Mäkelä, who takes over as the orchestra’s chief conductor in 2027, continues this tradition with a performance of Mahler’s First Symphony. The composer wrote about his work: »It has become so overpowering – it flowed out of me like a mountain stream!« Also on the programme is Arnold Schönberg’s early work »Verklärte Nacht« for string orchestra, based on Richard Dehmel’s poem of the same name. Before Schönberg climbed to the top of the avant-garde and shocked the music world with his twelve-tone music, he wrote deeply Romantic pieces in his younger years, in which he endeavoured to unite the styles of Wagner and Brahms.

Vriendenrepetitie: Klaus Mäkelä conducts Mahler

Only members of Concertvrienden can visit this rehearsal. More information on Concertvrienden.When Gustav Mahler came to Amsterdam to conduct the Dutch premiere of his First Symphony in 1903, a close collaboration started – so began the Concertgebouw Orchestra’s much-vaunted Mahler tradition. Klaus Mäkelä steps into that tradition with respect and self-confidence. He previously gave stunning interpretations of the Sixth and the Third, now it is time for the First, which he calls Mahler's 'pastoral’ symphony: ‘I’ve always been attracted to its imaginative beauty, and its freshness. The expression is extremely clear, and it contains all the elements of his later work.’Klaus Mäkelä opens the concert with Verklärte Nacht by Mahler's contemporary Arnold Schoenberg, who was born 150 years ago in Vienna. The late-romantic work is based on a poem by Richard Dehmel about a woman who confesses to her loved one that she is carrying someone else’s child. The music closely follows the conversation and draws the listener into an intimate emotional journey leading from fear and guilt to pure happiness.

Klaus Mäkelä & Frank Peter Zimmermann

A programme with three works requiring solo singers is certainly something special – so that Frank Peter Zimmermann has brought along two pieces never heard before in the concerts of the BRSO: Bartók’s roughly ten-minute Rhapsody No. 2 for violin and orchestra (1928) and Martinů’s Suite concertante (1944), a four-movement violin concerto in everything but name. Both works thrive on the tension between original eastern European folk melodies, modern sonic garb and the unique individual styles of their respective creators. A folk inflection of a quite different kind depicts the “heavenly joys” that soprano Anna Lucia Richter invokes in the final movement of Mahler’s Fourth Symphony. But the childlike naivety of this idyll openly displays its fractures, and perhaps no Mahler symphony is as enigmatic as his purportedly “simple” Fourth. Standing at the rostrum is the young Finnish conductor Klaus Mäkelä, now in his second appearance with the BRSO following his début of February 2020.