Susanna Mälkki is the conductor here and she knows instinctively when to unobtrusively tighten the emotional screws and when to sit back and simply let us take in Bartók's flabbergasting orchestral canvas. Pacing and phrasing are exemplary...

On the present recording, Mälkki has a terrific sense of how the piece should flow. Her tempos move purposefully. The opera’s individual scenes brim with character: the minor-second motive during the opening of the first door (the torture chamber) speaks chillingly. The third door (which reveals Bluebeard’s treasury of riches), with its glimmering celesta part, is radiant. So, too, the revelation of the garden (door four) and the great peroration in the fifth-door scene (which unveils Bluebeard’s lands). Throughout, the HPO plays with a mix of transparency and power that’s magnificent.

Orchestrally it’s magnificent; the Helsinki Philharmonic creates a sumptuously detailed sound world, which Mälkki focuses exactly on each unfolding layer of the drama.

L'orchestre est chez Susanna Mälkki cet élément protéiforme qui épouse la personnalité des voix, parfois par le simple jeu d'un changement dans la pulsation.

Sounds were silky and subdued, but not inert. Mälkki captured the sensuous essence of the score without sacrificing momentum.

Avec Susanna Mälkki, dont on a souvent loué l’intelligibilité et l’intelligence des options dans Messiaen, l’entente semble idéale. (...)
D’une remarquable lisibilité, mais sans sécheresse analytique, ni tiédeur. Ce souci de dosage des effets, de transparence dans la restitution de l’architectonique si particulière de l’œuvre, avec ses agrégats thématiques complexes, sa profusion de motifs, cette grande geste unificatrice donnent un éclairage particulier ....

Mälkki, an exceptional advocate for complex new scores, had a tight handle on the orchestral proceedings... she drew playing of terrific energy, taut balances, and bright color from the BSO. The brass and percussion sections, in particular, glowed.

Susanna Mälkki est une « rigoriste » de la partition, dont elle va chercher les moindre nuances, sans jamais prendre les libertés qu’on entend quelquefois chez certains chefs (y compris des légendes comme Toscanini). Par une science des dosages et une grande précision du geste, elle crée une dramaturgie musicale qui clarifie et approfondit la lecture, et qui à l’audition a produit des moments de pure stupéfaction.

Before “The Tempest,” Mälkki led a virtuosic, vibrant performance of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. She is best known for her advocacy of new music—she conducted Kaija Saariaho’s “L’Amour de Loin” at the Met in 2016—but she has quietly emerged as a formidable interpreter of the Romantic and early-modern repertory.

Susanna Malkki lead a mind-opening performance of Mahler’s Fifth with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

She seems able to do it all, is what I’m saying, and her gift for molding orchestral sonorities in music by Scriabin and Kaija Saariaho only added a new and unsurprising entry to the ledger of her talents.

The Finnish conductor Susanna Malkki led the New York Philharmonic in a performance of the work that was so urgent, detailed and exciting that I forgot all about cresting sea and splashing waves. I was, instead, engrossed by the way Ms. Malkki brought out the colors, intricacies and radicalism of “La Mer”