Bernard Haitink - the last remaining 'grand master’?

[Beef Oven!]

I haven’t always been a classical music fan, I picked it up just before the time of Karajan’s death and there were still many 'grand masters' around, including Leonard Bernstein, for example. Since then, so many have passed on and in recent years we have lost Abbado, Sir Colin and Boulez, to name just three.

I was lucky enough to have seen Giuseppe Sinopoli and Paavo Berglund many times and Gunter Wand twice.

Bernard Haitink’s performance of Mahler 3 with the LSO at last year’s Proms keeps coming back into my mind and it could be one of the greatest performances I’ve ever been to, even though the impact did not hit me as heavily as that at the time. Listening to my recently acquired recording of his live Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra Mahler 3 brought it all back - an utterly stupendous performance (both).

Earlier this evening I listened to my CD of DSCH 8 on Decca with the Concertgebouw (after all these years it still is up there with the very best) and the enormity of Haitink’s artistic ability really hit me. I’ve enjoyed many Uncle Bernie concerts with the Concertgebouw, Berlin Philharmonic, LSO and others.

He always struck me as too laid-back to bother with being a music director of a huge American orchestra, or throw his hat into the ring whenever the BPO job came up. Probably something to do with that Dutch casualness thing!

I’m sure he wouldn’t approve of the sobriquet 'grand master', but surely that’s what he is. And probably the last.

[cloughie]

Perhaps not revered as much on these boards but Previn and Mehta are still around!

[Nick Armstrong]

Bernard Haitink... I’m sure he wouldn’t approve of the sobriquet 'grand master', but surely that’s what he is. And probably the last.

There's a breadth and length and stature to his career that inclines me to agree with you - there are a few other 'grand old men' (as Cloughie says, Previn & Mehta, and also Ozawa, Stan Skrow etc) who can produce performances of equivalent quality, but the scale and variety and scope of Haitink's career (inc. recordings) do seem to me to put him in a class apart.

I was just thinking about this as I listened to his performance from last November of the complete Daphnis & Chloé from Paris just now on R3 - really compelling (although I didn't think his steady tempo for the final Bacchanale worked - when Uncle Bernie takes it steady, there's usually a pay-off as in those Mahler 3 performances, but here, well, I'm not so sure) and who else is there around of that generation who could do wonders with Ravel as well as Mahler and Bruckner?

He seems to be making Daphnis a bit of a speciality of late - here's another performance from November, with the RCM orchestra & chorus (I was supposed to go, but couldn't, to my chagin ):

PS great to be able to pay tribute to him without there being "RIP" in the thread title, thanks BeefO!

[Petrushka]

Bernard Haitink has been my musical godfather and the conductor I've seen more than any other but all too often he is taken for granted. He had his first conducting assignment in 1954, the year I was born, and 63 years later he is still giving performances of unbelievable quality and shows no signs of faltering.

I first saw him at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester on March 5 1978 with the LPO in a programme of Alexander Goehr Little Symphony, Beethoven 8 and Elgar 2 and again the following night (same programme) in Derby. Since then the great concerts have just kept on coming. My all time favourite BH concert is a Sept 3 1983 Prom of the Mozart 35 and the Bruckner 9 with the Concertgebouw. Unforgettable.

Let's hope that Haitink has many more years of fabulous music-making left.

[Richard Tarleton]

Me too Pet. First seen in 1972, a lot - Bruckner 3, Bruckner 8, Mahler 3 (x2), Elgar, Strauss, Brahms, Beethoven.... A bit of a gap due to geography when I relied on records but from the 1990s I've seen him with LSO, LPO, CSO, RCO, VPO....Brucker 7s (LSO, CSO) and a 9 (RCO), "that" Mahler 3 with BPO and 2 9's (LSO, VPO), 2 Ring cycles and a Meistersinger at ROH..... The most important conductor in my life, without a doubt.

[Barbirollians]

Isn't it rather meaningless ? There are few left of his generation but there are some extraordinarily talented youngish conductors around - Andris Nelsons, Vassily Petrenko for a start . One day they may well be the "grand masters "

[Petrushka]

I've taken a lot of listening material from the Dutch Radio 4 website here http://www.radio4.nl/persoon/77/haitink-bernard

That concert of Schubert 8/Act 1 of Die Walkure from 2008 is wonderful. Not yet heard the 1979 concert which also features the Wagner as it's only just gone up but hope to make time for it soon.

[Nick Armstrong]

Isn't it rather meaningless ?

Not really. We're talking about right at the moment.

Doubtless in the future there will indeed be others.

[Beef Oven!]

Caliban - yes, I hadn’t thought of it like that, but nice that we can celebrate him other than on one of those pesky RIPs!!

Cloughie - as a Wednesday supporter, you’ll understand when I say that Previn and Zubin aren’t in the same league

Richard & Petrushka - what a list of concerts!!!!

Barbirollians - ya boo! Your ignore button’s on the blink

[teamsaint]

Not really. We're talking about right at the moment.

Doubtless in the future there will indeed be others.

I'd be interested to know how many commercial recordings today's younger star conductors are making compared to the number made by conductors of similar age 30/50 years ago.

[EdgeleyRob]

Cloughie - as a Wednesday supporter, you’ll understand when I say that Previn and Zubin aren’t in the same league

Previn is IMVHO Beefy

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

They've been saying that x is "the last of the great conductors" for as long as I can remember - Klemperer started saying about himself when Walter died (and raised his fee accordingly).

I have tremendously great admiration for Haitink's recordings of Shostakovich, Debussy, RVW, Ravel, and Tchaikovsky - but for the Germanic repertoire that he seems to concentrate his energies on nowadays; well - they've never moved/impressed me as they obviously have so many others. For Bruckner, I'd much rather hear Stan and/or Barenboim - or, even more, Venzago; for Mahler, Gielen, Rattle, and/or MT-T. (From the "older" generations of conductors, that is. I'd rather hear this repertoire (and Beethoven and Brahms) performed by conductors thirty and more years younger than Haitink - ie, the next generations of great conductors.)

[cloughie]

Cloughie - as a Wednesday supporter, you’ll understand when I say that Previn and Zubin aren’t in the same league

Very condescending Beefy - Please allow other opinions than your own and the football team I support has no bearing whatsoever! Uncle Bernie has been consistent over 50 plus years, BUT not always exciting. The others I mention
ARE very much in the same league as is Ozawa and if you care to have a listen you will hear so. Previn has also the extra creativity of being a composer,and arranger in his Hollywood period at a very young age, of a wide variety of music and a very good pianist.

[richardfinegold]

I've sung Haitink's praises many times lately and I don't wish to be redundant. I liked some of of his output when I first encountered it as a College Student in the 70s but somehow the sobriquet "dour Dutchman" used by a critic then seemed to stick to him. My appreciation of him really began when I heard him guest conduct here and now I have been fanatically collecting his recordings. Ironically, those works that he has rerecorded from his earlier days are generally slower and more expansive than in his earlier 'dour' days

[Petrushka]

Haitink never imposes his own personality on the music or goes for cheap sensationalism which is why his concerts and recordings, especially those with the Concertgebouw, are so satisfying. The first time I saw him with the Concertgebouw was on Feb 5 1979 in a fantastic programme of Haydn 96 and Mahler 5 at the RFH and it has ever since been a regret that Haitink has never recorded Haydn symphonies apart from two in the early part of his career. Mozart symphonies are an even more puzzling omission.

The 'dour Dutchman' tag is something I've never really understood and is, in any case, refuted by the music-making.