On June 6^th, 2025, the British label Decca launched a new album by the Orchestre de Paris ensemble, conducted by the Finnish maestro Klaus Mäkelä. This marks the 3^rd record disc made by the French orchestra with its 29-year-old music director for Decca. This is the album that features an all-French program: Hector Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique and Maurice Ravel's La valse.

The orchestra's previous two record discs under Mäkelä included the ballet musical pieces first staged in Paris by Serghei Diaghilev- The Rite of Spring, Petrushka and The Firebird.

Here we find the extraordinary Klaus Mäkelä- a young man who simply amazes everyone. Starting from 2027, he will take over the leadership of two of the world's most important orchestras: Amsterdam's Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and Chicago's Symphony Orchestra. He has been conducting Orchestre de Paris since 2021, when he was only 25 years old. Recording Berlioz's 'Symphonie fantastique' is no easy task, considering the hundreds of high-quality interpretations already existing in today's crowded discographic world.

What certainly draws attention to Klaus Mäkelä's version of 'Symphonie fantastique' is its sense of vividness and immediacy. The music feels very alive, very close, with a new contemporary story of a love that drives its protagonist to the scaffold and into the witches' Sabbath night. And what brings great gratitude is to give a new life to a score almost 200 years old, making it pulse with animation and spirit in today's time, which is no small achievement.

Complementing the Symphonie fantastique is Ravel's La valse, a felicitous addition, which comes as an ideational continuation of Un bal, the second movement of Berlioz's symphony- another waltz.

Notable here is the elegance of expression and the large range of dynamics: from an imperceptible pianissimo to a thunderous fortissimo. And just like the critic from Classical review, I thought of how thrilling this performance would have sounded live, because indeed, the energy Klaus Mäkelä radiates is best felt in his concert appearances. We also noticed this at his performances during the 2023 Enescu Festival. And we will also hear him again on September 20th and 21st, 2025, at the same festival.