STICK FIGURES

The divergent conducting careers of Klaus Mäkelä and Xian Zhang.

- ALEX ROSS

Some years ago, when I was interviewing the pianist Mitsuko Uchida, she poked fun at the idea of a youthful star conductor: “Do you want yourself to be operated on by a genius twenty-year-old heart surgeon? Do you want to go to the theatre and see a teenager play King Lear?” Uchida’s point was that practitioners of the arm-waving profession tend to grow better and wiser with age. Orchestras register not only the gestures a conductor makes in front of them but also the history of music making that those gestures reflect. Herbert Blomstedt, who is ninety-five, can mesmerize a jaded first-tier ensemble with a gentle wave of his hands. It’s more than a question of personal mystique: it’s trust in a cumulative record of collective work.

That said, conducting isn’t simply an old person’s game. Willem Mengelberg, a major figure in early-twentieth-century music, assumed control of the Concertgebouw Orchestra, in Amsterdam, when he was twenty-four. Zubin Mehta and Gustavo Dudamel both took the helm of the L.A. Philharmonic when they were in their twenties. The City of Birmingham Symphony helped launch the careers of Simon Rattle, Andris Nelsons, and Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla. Now comes Klaus Mäkelä, a twenty-six-year-old Finn who has shot to podium fame as precipitately as anyone in history. He leads the Oslo Philharmonic and the Orchestre de Paris, will become chief conductor of the Concertgebouw in 2027, and is being eyed by several American orchestras. He made his New York Philharmonic début in early December.