When Catherine travels, she has a wonderful habit of weaving cultural highlights into her itinerary. No work trip without concerts along the way; no gathering of minds or important encounters without great culture in the immediate surroundings.

This week, Catherine is in Switzerland visiting the acclaimed Lucerne Summer Festival—five weeks of sumptuous classical music from some of the best orchestras and conductors of the world. One of them is Klaus Mäkelä, the notable young star conductor from Finland whose style and commanding presence have astounded musicians and critics alike.

At the age of 27, Mäkelä is music director of the Orchestre de Paris and the Oslo Philharmonic and will soon be at the helm of the Amsterdam Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. This is not the first time we have featured the talented Mäkelä in our Music of the Week blog.

For this week, we have selected a recording of Sibelius’ Symphony No. 7 with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra under Mäkelä, which was on the program of the Lucerne performance attended by Catherine with Gerald Brei and Astrid Natzler, teacher of Korean Hand Therapy.

The Seventh is Sibelius’ last symphony—a symphony in a single movement that was so original in its structure that Sibelius first called it a “symphonic fantasy” rather than a symphony. The music almost evolved by itself, generating notes spontaneously from its own internal form. A complete novelty in music tradition.

Related:

The Lucerne Festival

A portrait of Klaus Mäkelä

Klaus Mäkelä on Wikipedia

Symphony No. 7 (Sibelius) on Wikipedia

Music of the Week: May 6, 2022: Antonín Dvorák: Symphony No. 9

Special Solari Report: Korean Hand Therapy with Astrid Natzler