Chicago Classical Review

Tue Sep 29, 2026 at 2:25 pm

Klaus Mäkelä is the un-maestro.

No imperious attitude or ego-driven power trips (backstage or on stage) at Orchestra Hall from the man all refer to simply as “Klaus”—the down-to-earth, preternaturally talented Finnish conductor who will become the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s 11th music director in the fall of 2027.

Between rehearsals the 30-year-old conductor warmly greets his visitor at his dressing room door with a friendly smile and firm handshake, settling in for a wide-ranging conversation on music, repertoire, recordings and his growing partnership with the CSO.

The CSO Resound recording set of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 4 led by Bernard Haitink, the CSO’s late principal conductor, sits in front of him, which sets off a conversation about his late Dutch colleague. “I got this because I want to look at the documentary, which apparently is very good but I’ve never seen it. I like very much the recordings with LPO and Concertgebouw, which I think in a way is the reference [for Shostakovich].”   

Mäkelä will take the reins of the venerable Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra—among the top triumvirate of European symphonic ensembles along with the Berlin Philharmonic and Vienna Philharmonic— in the fall of 2027, the same time he becomes music director of the CSO. Of course, the Concertgebouw is the same ensemble that Haitink led for nearly three decades.

“It’s interesting,” he said. “Haitink had always this very complicated relationship with the musicians. Yet they all contend that what he had—better than anyone else—he had the ‘safe hands’. They knew whenever they looked at him, they would always be playing exactly the right passage in the right place.”

We move on to his current, intensely demanding CSO schedule with several major works slated for this fall residency, including  Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 this week as well as Shostakovich’s Fourth, and major works by Sibelius, Stravinsky and William Walton.

“These are, of course, important weeks because two out of the three of the programs go on tour,” said Mäkelä. “It’s our first tour in Europe, which for me means the world because I come to Europe with my new orchestra and we go to Paris, Vienna, all the big places.”

“So I wanted to have pieces that I think showcase our early relationship. Because obviously this is the start; this is nowhere near where we will end.” 

When we spoke last year, the CSO’s music director designate  likened his partnership with the orchestra to a kind of gradual crescendo leading to next September, and he says is pleased at the progression of the relationship.

“It’s been so inspiring. These things can go many ways. But it’s been going, in my view, at a wonderful, comfortable pace that has allowed us to really get to know each other.

“The orchestra is very particular in the most brilliant way. And I have my own way of doing things. I respect them so much that I don’t want to change things for the sake of changing.  

So it’s been wonderful to understand how they work so I can say what I think could be changed while still keeping their own identity.

Mäkelä mentions an unexpected event in August when he made his Ravinia debut leading two CSO programs. “Something happened at Ravinia when we played in a different acoustic. (Which was great—I loved that acoustic!) But we somehow clicked in a new way.”

Of this challenging fall schedule, Mäkelä believes that “these are all big pieces that need to be played very differently.”’

For instance, this week brings Mahler’s vast Symphony No. 9, the composer’s final completed work, which spans 80 minutes in performance. This will be his third time leading Mahler’s Ninth, and Mäkelä believes it it a work that has come to carry a lot of extra-musical freight.

“I think Mahler Nine is an enigma for all of us conductors,” he says. “But for me the most challenging thing about Mahler Nine is that it is a symphony that has become almost overcharged with everything.

“I mean when you look at it, everything is intertwined. Mahler of course was a master of the symphony and he thought it should have a vision of the whole world. It is like ‘Eroica’ on steroids. 

“It is a symphony where everything is connected. And because everything is connected, in a way you need to make sense of the symphony in a way that it works for you and that the audience understands.

“It is also a difficult symphony because Mahler never conducted it, and so he never did his normal corrections. And so balances are also difficult with that symphony because there is so much material.”

A hardcore and highly knowledgeable record collector, the conductor is especially fond of Carlo Maria Giulini’s Mahler Ninth with the CSO, along with Herbert van Karajan’s live Berlin performance.

The Mahler influence was powerfully manifest in last week’s performances od Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 4 (paired with Sibelius’s Symphony No. 7). The Shostakovich performances presented some of the most scarily intense playing heard from the CSO in many years.

“On the surface these are two symphonies that have nothing to do with each other,” said Mäkelä. “One is in a way is a closing chapter and the other is an opening chapter. 

“For me after the 15th symphony, I would say the Fourth is the most masterful Shostakovich symphony.  Because it is so daring. It’s completely unhinged. 

“It’s original for its form but it’s still a symphony. It holds together in its form and still works.”

“What makes sense for me about it more and more is the Mahlerian influence. We know that Shostakovich adored Mahler and he had the score of the Seventh Symphony on his piano. He knew very well the Fifth and the elements of that—the funeral march, the Landler-ish second movement, and, most importantly, combining serious and unserious material which is exactly what Mahler does.

“The greatest thing in this symphony for me is its harmony. There is nothing but harmony but it’s dissonant. It’s like Alban Berg because you have a beautiful melody with all the wrong notes. So it’s a really original piece.”

Many concertgoers are delighted that they are finally having the opportunity to hear Mäkelä lead the CSO in symphonies of his great compatriot composer with Sibelius’s Seventh last week and the First Symphony coming in the spring. Will we be getting  a kind of slow-motion Sibelius cycle in Chicago?

“I will try to sprinkle the symphonies” [in coming seasons]” he says. “but what I want to avoid is the obvious. You want to have some safety [with programming]  but then you also want to be sure that you don’t just fall into your own routine because that means people know exactly what you are going to do.” A refreshing change in podium philosophy at Orchestra Hall.

The day we talked Mäkelä had just come from the first CSO rehearsal of the Sibelius Seventh and he was impressed with their flexibility and finesse in a music that play somewhat infrequently.

“Every music is a different language and one must learn to speak the language,” he said. “Of course, you don’t start from scratch with a great orchestra like this. But it always requires work.

“Sibelius Seven is great because it has the form and the textures. And Sibelius was a master of textures. But some of those textures are not easy because they don’t sound the way they look on paper. For example with Lemmenkainen—it sounds totally different than how it looks. 

“I grew up with the Finnish tradition. I remember I was 16 when I played Sibelius [as a cellist] for the first time with the Helsinki Philharmonic. They would tell me, ‘Here you have to go on the C string’ and ‘Here we do this…’ Nothing was written down but it was kind of beautiful.”

“Yet as beautiful as that is, it’s easy to become too immersed in that. Because when you have a tradition it can be wonderful but it can also limit you from seeing other possibilities. For me, that is also refreshing.

“I brought my Finnish tradition with some bowings, some fingerings, this and this. But it also has to sound a bit like Chicago. That’s the point.

“I mean, globalism is good, as long as we also keep some identity.”

The final week of Mäkelä’s residency will bring William Walton’s cantata Belshazzar’s Feast—a choral showpiece that, amazingly, has not been performed by the CSO in a half century since Georg Solti led the last performances in 1976.

“This piece I have always loved,” says the conductor. “And like Sibelius 7 it’s so compact.” says Mäkelä. “How often do you have a great choral piece with big drama that says everything in 36 minutes? It’s brilliant.

“You have immensely multi-talented writing by Walton that has music of jazz, the saxophones, the groove, the percussion, the drama.

“And, of course it’s great because when you work with an English-speaking chorus you can really tell the story. I’m really looking forward to this.”

A good chunk of Mäkelä’s Chicago weeks are taken up, not just with rehearsals and concerts, but with auditions. He has already appointed eight musicians to the roster with many more to come.

“There are many places we still need to fill,” he said. “Every time I’m here we do many, many auditions all the time.

“It’s a very interesting process but, of course, it’s also a very dangerous one. Because even if we have many places open, we shouldn’t fill them in a hurry. We want to fill them so that we can have stability in the orchestra.

“It’s like when you’re studying a score— just because you can learn something fast doesn’t mean you should learn something fast.”

Mäkelä’s exclusive relationship with Decca marks a coming full circle in a way since that was the label for so many of Solti’s widely acclaimed recordings with the CSO. “I think it’s nice to have an orchestra with such a rich history with Decca,” says Makela. 

He cannot yet say publicly what his first CSO recording will be. “I wish I could tell you” he says with a teasing raising of the  eyebrows. “It might be something you have heard. But I can’t say more.”

An educated guess is that a Mahler cycle split between the CSO and Concertgebouw would likely get pretty good odds on Polymarket. 

Mäkelä’s first recording was a complete set of Sibelius symphonies, recorded with the Oslo Philharmonic, which he led from 2020-26. These performances were taped at the height of the Covid pandemic with wide spacing out of musicians, even stand partners.

“Can you imagine, everyone was two meters (6.5 feet) apart.” Two meters! When you’re two meters apart, you can only hear yourself and you don’t hear your colleagues.”

Oddly, the recordings turned out well and the strings have a somewhat unique, aerated quality. “That was the crazy thing,” he said. “The sound actually was amazing, especially for Sibelius.”

With our time coming to an end we return to the topic of his burgeoning relationship with the CSO musicians. 

“The greatest luxury for a conductor is to have an orchestra that is both so disciplined and also does everything with full conviction. And this I love. It’s great to have them with you. I always feel it and I respect them so much for it.

“It’s interesting because in music everything takes time. And in a way to say how we’re doing….we will really know in five years’ time when we have merged with the orchestra. Then we can see what we have achieved together.

“We already have the trust, which is very nice because that gives you so much freedom. Trust means freedom. With relationships and with everything. It’s the same with life.”

Klaus Mäkelä conducts the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in Mahler’s Symphony No. 9, 7:30 p.m. Thursday, 1:30 p.m. Friday, 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday. chicagosymphony.org

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