Bernard Haitink - the last remaining 'grand master’?

[David-G]

Not a word yet about opera! We were privileged to have Haitink as Music Director at Covent Garden, where I heard many fine performances. And he had previously been Music Director at Glyndebourne.

[HighlandDougie]

Building on the link to the RCM Daphnis, his work with youth orchestras deserves a mention. A DSCH 4th with the European Community Youth Orchestra was a really unforgettable performance. And there are others.

[Richard Tarleton]

Not a word yet about opera! We were privileged to have Haitink as Music Director at Covent Garden, where I heard many fine performances.

Erm, see #5

As I said, two cycles of the Jones Ring (what poor BH had to put up with - remember those fly on the wall docs about the ROH? - his reaction to Fricka's car in Walkure...or was that in an interview....) - and now I come to think about it a Bartered Bride from S Wells during the closure - and I was there for the last performance before the house closed - Meistersinger. As if to prove the point, the lights failed a few pages into the prelude, house plunged into total darkness. The orchestra played on for a few seconds, just in case. There followed an anxious interval while we waited to see if train fares, accommodation etc had been in vain, before someone inserted a nail in the fusebox - and things began again. There was a bit of an exodus during the Prize Song scene as people left to catch last trains - and the late great Gosta Winbergh was suffering during the last act, we were warned he would be not singing at full power. But it still managed to be a great performance. I have the CDs of the Haitink ROH Ring and Meistersinger.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Yes, I'd certainly agree that Haitink's skills at getting orchestras to "accompany" (for want of a better word) soloists - singers, and instrumentalists in Concertos - demonstrate Musicianship of a very high order.

[BBMmk2]

I would put Daniel Barenboim up there with Haitink too. N'est pas?

Also Mariss Jansons, Sir Andrew Davis, Valery Gergiev and Vlaidmir Ashkenazy, Andre Previn(still around but not doing very much I think?)

[Nick Armstrong]

the Jones Ring (what poor BH had to put up with - remember those fly on the wall docs about the ROH? - his reaction to Fricka's car in Walkure...or was that in an interview....)

Yes I've never forgotten the look on his face in that doc when he was first confronted with the maquettes of the set for that Ring - the car wreck in the junk-yard. (I last did that face when the curtain went up on the Glyndebourne Rameau production the other year with the chorus dressed as items of food in the racks of the enormous open refrigerator filling the stage )

[Maclintick]

Yes, I'd certainly agree that Haitink's skills at getting orchestras to "accompany" (for want of a better word) soloists - singers, and instrumentalists in Concertos - demonstrate Musicianship of a very high order.

I have huge respect & admiration for Bernard Haitink & the consummate musicianship he has displayed over many decades, never understanding & feeling almost personally affronted on his behalf by the "Dour Dutchman" tag, since it entirely belies my experiences of his performances. DSCH 8 with the Concertgebouw at the Proms in 1983 & of Bruckner 5 with that orchestra a few years later are etched in my musical memory as gold standard.

He's in his 80s now, & IMHO understandably lacks energy at times -- GM2 at the Proms being a case in point -- but what rich seams he mined with the LPO, Covent Garden, Glyndebourne & the Concertgebouw over many, many years. We also tend to underestimate his versatility in repertoire -- The Peter Hall Britten "Midsummer Night's Dream" , 1983 "Don Giovanni" with Tom Allen at Gyndebourne. The controversial but musically excellent ROH Ring, "Meistersinger" and "Don Carlos" with Hampson, Hvorostovsky & Borodina. His stunning RVW cycle with EMI !

BH is a giant.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Somewhere in the BBC vaults there is a Haitink-conducted Midsummer Marriage from the early '90s - be good if that were made available.

[bluestateprommer]

[Haitink] 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.

Going in somewhat reverse order:

1. On whether Haitink is "the last remaining grand master", I would respectfully say "not exactly", though he certainly is one of the last grand masters of his generation still standing. One name is totally missing from this discussion whom I would place in the category of grand masters among conductors along side Haitink, namely: Herbert Blomstedt. As but one example for proof, his Gewandhaus Prom last summer should rank up there with BH's Mahler 3 at the RAH.

2. I would agree that Haitink wouldn't have done well as a music director in the USA. I think the schmoozing and fund-raising aspects that a US music director has to do would have driven him up the wall, at a guess.

3. On the Berlin Phil and "what might have been" after Karajan's resignation, this NYT article by Nicholas Kenyon might have some insights:

http://www.nytimes.com/1991/06/02/arts/classical-music-for-a-reluctant-maestro-relief-no-regrets-in-berlin.html?pagewanted=all

From something like late 1989/early 1990:

"To be honest, I never believed it was a serious proposition until they came to me very soon before the decision and said it was very probable that I would be chosen. I knew I couldn't refuse if it was offered, but it would have been hell for me. And I said to them, to be honest, I wouldn't have been the right man for the job. First of all, I'm just a bit too old, and second, I'm just not tough enough with all these commercial pressures which are so incredible now. It gets worse all the time. Is it compact disks which have given the record companies such strength?"

Closer to the time of the article, mid-1991:

'About the Berlin choice, he said, he still had "no regrets at all."

"I am still relieved, and Claudio Abbado is an excellent choice and a very good colleague. I would have been sad if the projects I had with the orchestra had been blocked, but that has not happened, and now we are doing even more together.""

Or to put it another way, as a guest conductor, he gets to have all of the fun without any of the responsibility, especially if the orchestra is able to give him carte blanche in choice of repertoire.

[Beef Oven!]

Thanks for the very interesting points of view and information - I had no idea that BH was so in the frame for the BPO job, back then. It’s almost too painful to think what might have been.

[Alison]

Good post Beef. I had feared the dreaded RIP as I caught sight of the new thread!

The one thing BH should do before he retires is guest conduct the LPO. We could all have a ball at the RFH.

[Beef Oven!]

Good post Beef. I had feared the dreaded RIP as I caught sight of the new thread!

The one thing BH should do before he retires is guest conduct the LPO. We could all have a ball at the RFH.

Sorry for the scare!

[Alison]

I was fortunate enough to attend Midsummer Marriage

That Covent Garden Wagner (Parsifal and Lohengrin too) was tremendous conducting - and what an orchestra Haitink left for Pappano!

Not sure if Beef is into Richard Strauss but the performance of Don Juan on the LPO label is an excellent sample of the Haitink South Bank magic. Edge of seat stuff.

[EdgeleyRob]

Good post Beef. I had feared the dreaded RIP as I caught sight of the new thread!

The one thing BH should do before he retires is guest conduct the LPO. We could all have a ball at the RFH.

Especially if he did.....say....off the top of my head.....some RVW

[Richard Tarleton]

That Covent Garden Wagner ... Lohengrin ....was tremendous conducting - and what an orchestra Haitink left for Pappano!

That's going back Alison - 1977! I saw the 1997 revival with Gergiev - and the 2009 with Bychkov! Marvellous Elijah Mojinsky production.