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“The suppleness of the conducting, the warm opulence of the sound …all blossom in the sound space of the Philharmonie de Paris.” - Le Figaro Klaus Mäkelä, the first conductor signed to Decca for forty years, brings the Orchestre de Paris to the label for a major new album of Stravinsky’s most iconic ballet scores. The album represents Mäkelä’s first recording with his French orchestra, which will be followed by a further Ballet Russes release in 2024 featuring Stravinsky’s Petrushka and Debussy’s Jeux and L’Apres midi d’une faune. Klaus Mäkelä has electrified the musicians and audiences of the Orchestre de Paris since the start of his Music Directorship in September 2021. One of the major projects of his second season at the Philharmonie de Paris was a traversal of Stravinsky’s pivotal ballet scores The Firebird and The Rite of Spring that proved anything but routine. The performances captured live on Decca’s new release carry the combination of intensity, intelligence and authority on which the young conductor is building his extraordinary career. For me, these two works represent a conclusion and a new start. The Firebird is like a last statement of late-romantic orchestral expression with its harmonic language and orchestration stretched beyond imagination, and carrying the narrative of the story with every slightest gesture. The Rite of Spring opens up a completely new world. The colours and sounds he gets out of an orchestra are different from everything heard before. When performing this work one feels the aspect of a ritual very strongly. This is music that has the craziest rhythmic drive imaginable.” - Klaus Mäkelä