The Finn Klaus Mäkelä is still only 26, but he has already risen supersonically through the conducting ranks. He’s currently at the helm of two leading European orchestras, the Oslo Philharmonic and the Orchestre de Paris, and has become only the third conductor in the history of the label to be signed to an exclusive recording contract by Decca, following in the footsteps of Georg Solti and Riccardo Chailly. Whether Mäkelä will prove to be an artist on a par with those distinguished predecessors remains to be seen, but his debut with the company is certainly a statement of intent – a complete cycle of the Sibelius symphonies with the Oslo orchestra, recorded in the Norwegian capital last year.
