This album rose quickly onto classical best-seller charts in the summer of 2024, riding a tremendous wave of interest in its young conductor,
Klaus Mäkelä
. Here, in what is apparently the beginning of a series, he leads the
Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra
, a group he knows well, in three vastly different
Shostakovich
symphonies. The
Symphony No. 4 in C minor, Op. 43
, is edgy early
, and the composer withdrew it after the similarly acid
Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District
ran into a buzzsaw of Stalinist condemnation.
Mäkelä
doesn't quite get the edge here, although the
Oslo Philharmonic
plays well here and throughout, but things improve from there on out. One can argue about
's intentions in the
Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Op. 47
, especially in its militaristic finale. Yet, leaving possible political significance aside, this kind of sheer entertainment is what
does best.
himself says that the hefty first movement of the
Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 54
-- a relatively infrequently played work -- is
's single greatest symphonic movement, and he delivers a performance to match, with iron control over the
Philharmonic
's strings throughout the complex structure. The
Decca
label's sound from the Oslo Konzerthuis is clear and sharp. This release makes one eager to hear what
makes of the rest of the
cycle, from the high-spirited early works to the profoundly ambiguous Mahlerian late ones. ~ James Manheim