Tully Potter
Daily Mail
November 2024

From Nordic climes comes a prime package of Shostakovich from a time when he feared for his life. After Stalin denounced his opera Lady Macbeth, he withdrew his Fourth Symphony and it was not heard for 25 years. It still sounds new in the hands of the Oslo Philharmonic under the brilliant young Klaus Mäkelä, who finds the angst at its core. He redeemed himself with his Fifth Symphony, which gets a rampaging performance, but courted trouble again with the Sixth, which has a 19-minute opening Largo. The sound is splendid.