Chicago Symphony Orchestra & Klaus Mäkelä

The Calm before the Storm

Finland: the land of forests and a thousand lakes. The peaceful, pastoral tones of Jean Sibelius’ Symphony N˚ 7. are something that fellow Finn Klaus Mäkelä will no doubt draw upon, before crossing the border to neighbouring Russia where our storm will strike. Dmitri Shostakovich, initially unapologetic for the terror and tragedy of his Fourth Symphony, .made an abrupt U-turn and cancelled its premiere for fear of reprisals by the Soviet Regime. It was almost twenty years later that Symphony N˚ 4 finally saw the light of day, in all its modernist glory.