Hector Berlioz (1803-1869)
Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
La valse, M.72
Orchestre de Paris/Klaus Mäkelä
rec. 2024, Philharmonie de Paris, France
Decca 4870959 [68]
I have seen and read some quite widely differing views on the conductor Klaus Mäkelä, some supportive and hugely appreciative of his Sibelius symphony cycle, for example (review) and others, especially on YouTube, where he apparently cannot do anything right. Similarly , his venture into recording two seminal Stravinsky works prompted conflicting responses (review ~ review). For the purposes of this article, I should fully disclose that this is my first encounter with the work of this young maestro (b.1996) who is due to become the Principal Conductor of the Concertgebouw and the Chicago Symphony Orchestras at the start of the 2027 season; clearly a great career is potentially promised. My reviewer’s notepad is therefore a mere blank piece of paper, free from any preconceptions or expectations – you would undoubtedly retort, with much justification, that this is how it should be, except there is that thing called ‘unconscious bias’, as well as ‘imprinting’ (where you can be too kind to the first recording you heard of a work) that can easily affect a review. I have none with regards to Klaus Mäkelä; I do not know his work and my experience in putting together my Mahler Surveys has taught me to expect the unexpected – Lorin Maazel, for example, can often be relied upon in those projects to produce one of the best accounts, as well as one of the worst; one is just never quite sure which. I was therefore thrilled to be asked to review this new disc conducted by him, containing two of my favourite works, thereby ‘auditioning’ Mäkelä in the process.
I started with La Valse, that ‘other’ minor masterpiece from the pen of Maurice Ravel, too often overshadowed by Boléro but arguably an even more impressive achievement. It was premiered in 1920 and the composer wrote the following preface to the score:
Through whirling clouds, waltzing couples may be faintly distinguished. The clouds gradually scatter: one sees at letter A [in the score] an immense hall peopled with a whirling crowd. The scene is gradually illuminated. The light of the chandeliers bursts forth at the fortissimo letter B. Set in an imperial court, about 1855.
When the British composer, George Benjamin (b.1960) summarised the music in The Musical Times in 1992, as “Whether or not it was intended as a metaphor for the predicament of European civilization in the aftermath of the Great War, its one-movement design plots the birth, decay and destruction of a musical genre: the waltz”, he was also addressing a certain ambiguity on the part of the composer, who was reluctant to impose any kind of interpretation on his part at all. This is important, as we will find out in the context of this review, where for comparative purposes I selected two recordings both featuring the same orchestra as on this disc, the Orchestre de Paris, namely Herbert von Karajan’s from 1971 and Jean Martinon’s from 1974 (review), dismissing the same ensemble’s 1981 account, fussily conducted by Daniel Barenboim, as evidence that the presence of a French orchestra in this repertoire is no guarantee of a successful performance.
From all accounts, Karajan preferred his waltzes neat, rather than with the additional French chic and allure which is found in Ravel’s score. However, his opening of La Valse is masterful, with the music seemingly emerging magically from the mists as if from a haunted ballroom in a dream that would end in a nightmare. By contrast, Mäkelä seems to be at great pains during the same passage to achieve maximum clarity of sound, which he perhaps achieves at the expense of the actual music itself. An example of this occurs as early as bar thirteen in the score, where the composer marks the violin parts to be played ‘sur la touche’ meaning that they should bow over the fingerboard to achieve a softer, more veiled sound, that instead under Mäkelä has a laser-sharp focus; in short, with Mäkelä you hear the notes, with Karajan you hear the swirling silks of a lady’s dress as she glides around the dance floor. That said, the younger conductor is clearly a swift, spirited dancer of waltzes and he inspires his players to play accurately enough in an interpretation that glitters with all the brilliance that Ravel pours into his score, yet contains none of the ‘perfumed delirium’ my colleague Rob Barnett so memorably noted in his aforementioned review of Jean Martinon’s performance, before the conductor then leads his dancers over the edge and into the abyss. In comparison, Mäkelä’s ending does not convince me; it is sped up for maximum, cheap excitement, yet contains not an ounce of catastrophe, nor hint of disaster. If you are more inclined to believe George Benjamin’s analysis of the music, rather than the more enigmatic stance of the composer, then you may conclude, as I did, that Mäkelä has fundamentally missed the whole point of this score.
The coupling for this disc is one of the greatest symphonic masterpieces in the entire repertoire, Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, which had its first complete recording exactly a century ago in 1925, when the London Symphony Orchestra was conducted by Felix Weingartner and it has been recorded by virtually every conductor of note since. Naturally, I included it in my article from earlier this year titled The Top Twenty Symphonies you should have in your Library, that also contained what I felt were representative recordings of the work, specifically those by Charles Munch, Leonard Bernstein, Herbert von Karajan, Colin Davis and John Eliot Gardiner, the latter which can be put to one side as being representative of historically informed performances, which this new recording by Mäkelä clearly does not aim to be.
Turning to the other recordings, then, few have matched the feverish excitement and ‘sense of rightness’ that characterises both recordings by Charles Munch, although Leonard Bernstein certainly comes close, especially in his second recording for EMI (now Warner) with the Orchestre National de France. Karajan (in 1975) is more nuanced and achieves an almost unique alchemy of suave gallic elegance, punctuated by terrific outbursts of tension in the first three movements before a darkly menacing March to the Scaffold is followed by a Witches’ Sabbath that is the stuff of nightmares, the bells clanging as if at the Gates of Hell. I included one of Colin Davis’s various recordings of the piece in the survey with the caveat that it was due to the conductor’s reputation as a Berlioz specialist and that his recordings of the piece, especially his 1974 account with the Concertgebouw Orchestra, are venerated by certain critics particularly in the UK, if not necessarily by me. Left to my own devices, I would much rather choose one of Ken’ichiro Kobayashi’s eight (yes, eight!) recordings, specifically his 1995 version for Canyon Classics with the Czech Philharmonic, where the sound is astonishing and the playing exceptional. Rather than the gripping excitement of Munch and Bernstein, or the high drama of Karajan, this is a performance where the imagination at play from players and podium is quite wonderful; the woodwind playing in particular glitters and sparkles on top of a cushion of velvety strings, augmented by brass playing of translucent grandeur, all coupled to a superb, fizzing Le Carnaval Romain overture. So what this lengthy preamble serves to prove is that the standard of recordings of this symphony that already exist is hugely formidable and any new one really needs to be special to stand out.
Unfortunately, this new version by Klaus Mäkelä falls some way short of that, its sole distinguishing feature being the observation of the exposition repeats in the first movement, as well as in the fourth movement March to the Scaffold, which most other conductors ignore, perhaps with good reason. The playing of the orchestra is good and professional, but lacks the imagination of Kobayashi’s Czech players or the collective excitement of Munch’s and Bernstein’s bands. More damning, perhaps, is the Decca sound which, while still pretty good, pales next to the glowing sonics of Canyon Classics way back from 1995. As for the interpretation, the first two movements go well enough, without being anything special, but the third movement gets rather lost in its bland facelessness.
Most disappointing of all is the March to the Scaffold which just sounds too matter-of-fact, marching drearily down to the local supermarket to do the weekly shopping; it’s as if the conductor has merely noted that the second movement is a waltz in a ball, whereas the fourth is just any old march. There is no context and while I personally haven’t been summoned to the scaffold yet (although some might think I deserve to be, based upon my reviews) I would imagine it to be a slightly more harrowing experience than the one presented here. The last movement is slightly more characterful and the bells do sound realistic enough, but they do not toll as if doom-laden; instead they are a summons to a summer’s tea party at the local vicarage. Similarly, the re-appearance of the Dies Irae motif at the climax of the movement counts for nothing – listen to Klemperer here on his EMI recording with the Philharmonia, who sounds as if his brass players have announced the appearance of The Devil Himself at this Witches’ Sabbath. To be fair, Mäkelä does whip up a good amount of excitement in the coda – but then so does virtually everyone else.
Overall then, this is a disappointing release. If it encourages more people, perhaps a younger audience attracted to the youth of the conductor, to listen to classical music, or maybe inspires others to explore different works by these composers, especially by that most underrated genius that is Hector Berlioz, than all power to Mäkelä’s baton. However, for the more seasoned collector, my advice would be to stick to the aforementioned established benchmarks alongside their personal favourites. As I concluded with a recent release by another young lion(ess) of the podium, Elim Chan [All These Lighted Things], who recorded warhorses by Prokofiev and Ravel, the ghosts of podiums past haunt this repertoire, making it very hard for new conductors to make any mark.
Lee Denham
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