Klaus Mäkelä conducts Chin, Wagner, and Strauss

On Christmas morning in 1870, a group of musicians arrived at a villa in present-day Lucerne to perform a surprise private concert conducted by the great Hans Richter — who had reportedly sailed out to the middle of Lake Lucerne to practice the trumpet part without being heard. Cosima Wagner awoke to hear the first-ever performance of her husband Richard's birthday gift to her: the symphonic poem Siegfried Idyll, twenty minutes of rapture and romance. For their Christmas concert in 2024, star conductor Klaus Mäkelä and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra commemorate this legendary event, bringing out all the warmth and love in Wagner's yearning melodies and immersive harmonies. Their Christmas feast also includes Unsuk Chin's Beethoven-inspired miniature Subito con forza, a work they premiered together in 2020, and another exquisite symphonic poem: Strauss's Ein Heldenleben (A Hero's Life), a self-referential and autobiographical epic inspired in large part, like Wagner's, by the composer's love for his wife Pauline.

Photo © Eduardus Lee
Klaus Mäkelä appears courtesy of Decca Classics. Click here to discover Klaus Mäkelä's releases on Decca Classics, including a new Stravinsky album with the Orchestre de Paris.