United Kingdom Salzburg Festival 2025 [5] – Schubert-Berio and Mahler: Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra / Klaus Mäkelä (conductor). Grosses Festspielhaus, Salzburg, 21.8.2025. (MB)
Schubert-Berio – Rendering
Mahler – Symphony no.5
Klaus Mäkelä’s multiple orchestral appointments have ignited animated discussion among those preoccupied with such matters. Never having heard him before, I was curious to hear which was more justified: the sky-high praise or, well, the opposite. On this basis, I am afraid to say the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra does not appear to have chosen well for its artistic partner and chief conductor designate. Not only were Mäkelä’s readings of two symphonic works half-baked at (very) best; his flattening effect on the orchestral sound, robbing it of so much of what should have one reaching for superlatives, suggests still more serious problems ahead. A single concert can only give an impression, but it was saddening, even maddening simply to have to wait for the end. Herbert von Karajan would have said he needed a few years away in Ulm, away from the spotlight. There seems, alas, little prospect of that, so Mäkelä’s orchestras will have to work with what they have. I wish them luck.
Berio’s Rendering showed little at length, other than that Mäkelä’s apparent lack of feeling for either Berio or Schubert, on whose symphonic fragments the work is founded. The first movement opened freshly enough with commendable precision yet also presented a stiffness that did not augur well. As Schubert ceded to Berio, the latter’s timbral and harmonic invasions were well handled, suggestive of uncertainty and unease, the orchestra’s long pedigree in music written for it evident. The music sounded more and more faceless, though, as time went on. Grave trombones made their presence keenly, magically felt in their big ‘moment’, but this was at best a collection of moments, with mere ‘filling’ in between. The opening of the second movement promised something more, Mäkelä largely letting the music take its course, the orchestra well balanced and pointed. But again, it lost its way — and not in the way Berio intended. A gorgeous oboe solo and, in general, gorgeous wind playing offered some compensation. This, though, was a listless affair that seemed as though it would never end. Strangely thin string sound marked the onset of the finale; it seemed intentional, though I could not tell you why. It moved more or less as it ‘should’, albeit without any ear for harmony. Vaguely Mahlerian counterpoint suggested a connection with what was to come, but it was not enough. By the end, it felt as if an hour had passed rather than just over thirty minutes.
Mahler’s Fifth Symphony is an extremely difficult piece to bring off. I have heard more than a few conductors come unstuck in it; this was to be no exception. Mäkelä again presented a succession of episodes that not only had little connection with one another; they even lacked sharp characterisation on their own terms. The orchestra, steeped in this music since the composer himself, played well enough, but there is only so much one can do in Mahler with such rudderless direction. At first, it sounded as though we might have Mahler as Shostakovich: not the way I hear the music, but a point of view, even a guiding principle, at least. Mäkelä soon began to mould the first movement a bit too obviously and, more to the point, incoherently: unconnected, so far as I could hear, either to what had passed or to what was to come. The storm, when it came, was merely petulant. Tempo changes in general were arbitrary; long passages seemed pretty much to grind to a halt. Very much in the line of his Schubert-Berio, there was little to no sense of harmony, let alone harmonic motion.
The second movement proceeded similarly, in fits and starts, however admirable the playing in itself. It either felt too fast or too slow; not that there is a ‘correct answer’ for tempo matters, but tempo relationships made no sense, still less relation of tempo to other aspects of the score. Balance was often so askew as to sound uninterestingly bizarre. ‘Much the same’ would, I am afraid, be the verdict for an increasingly laboured attempt at the third movement too. The Adagietto fared better, at least begin with. If on the moulded side, it held together for quite a while, with genuinely fascinating echoes of Wagner’s string writing, prior to the masturbatory meal Mäkelä made of the close. The disconnected string of aural images, for want of a better phrase, which made up the finale simply had me long for the concert to be over. Eventually it was, in a performance that lasted about 74 minutes. Again, it felt not far off twice that.
What a contrast with this same orchestra, almost exactly two years ago, in Mahler’s Seventh Symphony under Iván Fischer. A depressing evening, all the more so since it was acclaimed by the audience to the rafters.
Mark Berry
Featured Image: RCO conducted by Klaus Mäkelä in Salzburg’s Grosses Festspielhaus © SF/Marco Borrelli
Hi Mark, just saw him perform at the BBC Proms in London. Glad to say I enjoyed your review tremendously, and agreed with it entirely. Felt slightly sorry for the wonderful musicians of the RCO.
Perhaps I should have read this before last night’s BBC Proms performance of Mahler 5 by the same forces. The Adagietto was glorious however even this great orchestra could not override the problem arising from the conductor. There was no overall structure which linked the 5 movements and thus failed to take us on the type of spiritual journeys that Rattle, Chailly, Haitink, Tennstedt, Abbado and others have done!!
I heard Mäkelä in Vienna with RCO and Bruckner 5. It was a disaster! I cannot understand this hype!!! He should really go to Ulm or St. Pölten!!
I seem to be in a minority.
Clearly I was not in Salzburg. It have listened to the BBC Prom. I found it thrilling as did many in the Royal Albert Hall. Surely music is about that kind of communication. OK, maybe you heard it better before or you wouldn’t have played it that way. Surely an Albert Hall full of music lovers are not all wrong. Did you hear a single ‘boo’. All these orchestras have selected Klaus Mäkelä because they see a potential future for their collaboration. Your review seemed like ‘what does this upstart think he’s doing?’ Just because his interpretation doesn’t coincide with your view of the piece. The world is revolving. I do not have your credentials. However, I have sung with choral groups with Boult, Giulini, Abbado, Bernstein, Davis, Previn, Tippett, Barenboim.
There is a new generation. Have you heard of Maxim Emelyanychev? No one is throwing random alliterations at him.
Hear hear!! 👍👍👏👏👏
I completely agree with you. I loved the concert and am a critical listener and musician.
I sensed a dislike for Mäkelä in Mark Berry’s review and a mind made up before a note had been played…
Dear Suzilokska,
I am glad to hear you enjoyed this. I certainly take no pleasure in travelling internationally to hear something, only to leave disappointed. I do feel, though, that I should respond to your claim of having ‘sensed a dislike for Mäkelä in Mark Berry’s review and a mind made up before a note had been played’.
I clearly stated that I had never heard him before and ‘was curious to hear whether ‘sky-high praise’ or ‘the opposite’ was more justified. Since I had literally no first-hand prior knowledge of his conducting, there was no way in which I could have a view at all, let alone a ‘mind made up’. Whatever made you ‘sense’ that, I do not know; it cannot be anything I wrote.
Perhaps it might be more productive to outline what it was you, as a ‘critical listener’, found rewarding in this Salzburg concert.
With best wishes, Mark Berry
How can you write a ‘review’ of a concert that includes Mahler’s 5th Symphony and not acknowledge at least the wonderful soloists of the orchestra. This is beyond my understanding.
Interesting observations. Coincidentally I have been enjoying his Stravinsky and Berlioz on Decca which I feel to be crisply played and perfectly phrased. And the recordings are outstanding with 3D sound staging and terrific presence. I guess I’m an outlier with this group.
You could see how the musicians responded with sheer unbridled enthusiasm to his leadership. An absolutely scintillating Mahler 5. The audience were in raptures as was I! Such a refreshing rendition and what superb virtuosic playing! Absolutely amazing! Loved it!!
I just watched it on BBC TV tonight and have never been so disappointed by the turgid style and lack of Mahler’s energy to the piece. It was somehow homogenised and there were none of the surprises I usually get with Mahler conducted in London by great conductors. That is why I tried to find some forum or criticism to see if I was losing the plot! And now I know I am not! Sometimes I think that ecstatic applause is really relief!
Just returned to our hotel from the same programme in Lucerne. The superb acoustic of the KKL hall allowed every orchestral line to be heard, even in fff passages. The brass and strings were exceptional, but my over-riding sensation was of a lack of subtlety by the conductor. His excellent orchestra maintained superb discipline but compared with Abbado in the same hall on BluRay from 25 years ago, the direction showed very little of the nuance of dynamics or rhythm shown by the great man, albeit after 60+ years of experience. Maybe the next generation of listeners will enjoy a more mature Mäkelä in the years to come?