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”

What the 48-year-old Mälkki does bring is, first and probably foremost, the ability to create viscerally arresting performances.

Mälkki led an expansive performance of the concerto and Chamayou was in fine control of both its florid and rhetorical material, playing with efficiency and expressiveness.

The absolute integrity of her music-making, her clear, unmannered command, her knack for clarifying the densest orchestral textures, for inspiring players to give something extra, showed in pairings of standard symphonic works by Beethoven and her compatriot Jean Sibelius.

...Friday night’s grand and impassioned performance of the Symphony No. 2 showed once again why Mälkki is among the most exciting and illuminating of CSO podium guests.

...the results were largely successful with Susanna Mälkki, one of the CSO’s most reliable guest conductors, in charge on the podium."

...a badass woman named Susanna Mälkki wielded her suspended baton in a nameless space that she — singularly and securely — owns.

For many music lovers, Mälkki is more than an outstanding conductor. She’s a hero — one of the few women who have managed to break through classical music’s glass ceiling.