There’s something about the Proms that brings out the star quality in visiting orchestras – and their conductors. Plenty already think that Klaus Mäkelä wafts clouds of stardust wherever he goes – including the managements of both the Concertgebouw and the Chicago Symphony orchestras, who have announced him as their new chief from 2027 – but any doubters would have been swayed by this Prom with the Orchestre de Paris.
The programme, at once crowd-pleasing and satisfyingly meaty, was about as Parisian as they come: Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune; Stravinsky’s Petrushka, written for Paris’s Ballets Russes; and Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, one of this orchestra’s calling-cards. Each was played with the kind of care and technical precision that might seem merely polished in the context of a recording but was electrifying in the hall.
Indeed, Mäkelä seemed confident that he had us all in the palm of his hand from the off. Less that a minute into the Debussy he was already holding a pause in the music long enough so that we could really feel the silence – nobody dared breathe, let alone cough. In Petrushka, the rude contrabassoon note that rounds off the freewheeling fairground music drew a genuine out-loud laugh from around the audience that I’ve never heard before in this piece.
Each of these three storytelling works unfolded with engaging narrative spark, but there were so many relishable moments within them: the flute solos in the Debussy, blooming a little more sensuous every time; the spatial effects in the open-air scenes of the Stravinsky, with some things sounding exhilaratingly close, others distant; the way in which the violins played the opening tune of the Berlioz, sweetly but without vibrato, making it sound like the beginning of a story of long ago. The most animated passages went at white-knuckle tempos, but the orchestra was up for a sprint. The timpanists were visibly having a whale of a time.
There were plenty of big gestures from Mäkelä, especially in the hard-driven final two movements of the Berlioz. But more often his conducting was neat, contained and, best of all, sometimes barely there at all. After three years in charge of this orchestra, Mäkelä can trust his musicians enough to put down his arms and let them get on with it. There’s no loss of momentum when this happens, just a feeling of an elite team at work. Mäkelä is a star, no doubt, and the proof of it is that he makes his players look and sound like stars, too.
• Available on BBC Sounds until 13 October. The BBC Proms continue until 14 September.
