Haitink interviewed on Music Matters 17 Feb '13

[Guest]

Bernard Haitink, a sometimes reserved and reluctant interviewee, gave a fascinating and quite lengthy interview to Tom Service on Music Matters yesterday.

I realised that Tom has developed a Haintink-proof interviewing style. Time and again he made an assertion about Haitink's career or working methods which caused the usually placid maestro to mount a gentle reproach and to provide instead less fanciful responses, full of insights. Brilliant!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01qqf49

[Belgrove]

Yes it was a fascinating interview. He has huge admiration and respect for his fellow musicians and this comes over in the music making. His comment that Mahler is played too frequently nowadays was particularly interesting. It will be interesting to contrast his Bruckner 9 with the LSO with that given by the VPO at the Proms last year. Is anyone going tonight?

[amateur51]

Yes it was a fascinating interview. He has huge admiration and respect for his fellow musicians and this comes over in the music making. His comment that Mahler is played too frequently nowadays was particularly interesting. It will be interesting to contrast his Bruckner 9 with the LSO with that given by the VPO at the Proms last year. Is anyone going tonight?

Edward Gardner LPO and Spring Symphony by Britten at RFH for me tonight but I'm going to the repeat Haitink Bruckner performance at the Barbican on Thursday. Good £15 tickets available for this concert as of yesterday

[Belgrove]

Do let us have your thoughts on it Ams. The Proms performance was the highlight of the season for me, transcendentally beautiful, and a staggering brass section.

[amateur51]

Do let us have your thoughts on it Ams. The Proms performance was the highlight of the season for me, transcendentally beautiful, and a staggering brass section.

Yes I shall, Belgrove. The pleasure that Haitink gets from working with orchestral players generally and with the LSO in particular shone through the interview, I thought.And the LSO's organising their forthcoming tour to meet Haitink's declining energy levels speaks well of their opinion of him too

[richardfinegold]

Yes it was a fascinating interview. He has huge admiration and respect for his fellow musicians and this comes over in the music making. His comment that Mahler is played too frequently nowadays was particularly interesting. It will be interesting to contrast his Bruckner 9 with the LSO with that given by the VPO at the Proms last year. Is anyone going tonight?

I didn't listen to the interview, but Arkivmusic lists 41 recordings of the Tink conducting Mahler. The only Composers that he has more recordings listed are Beethoven and Mozart. I counted 5 separate recordings of him in Mahler/1. If the man thinks that Mahler is over performed, perhaps a good look in the mirror
when he shaves each morning is in order.

[Alison]

A couple of very kind friends have laid on a late birthday surprise and driven me to the Barbican this evening when I was expecting to undertake keyboard duties at church. Great sense of anticipation now .. .

[Thropplenoggin]

I didn't listen to the interview, but Arkivmusic lists 41 recordings of the Tink conducting Mahler. The only Composers that he has more recordings listed are Beethoven and Mozart. I counted 5 separate recordings of him in Mahler/1. If the man thinks that Mahler is over performed, perhaps a good look in the mirror when he shaves each morning is in order.

[amateur51]

A couple of very kind friends have laid on a late birthday surprise and driven me to the Barbican this evening when I was expecting to undertake keyboard duties at church. Great sense of anticipation now .. .

Happy Birthday Alison!

What wonderful friends who obviously think the world of you. I hope that it was a performance to match your anticipation

[Alison]

Thank you Amateur. Yes, I left fully satisfied - and a bit more. What a performance from Ms Pires in the Concerto 2,
superb cadenza. Had no idea she is nearly 70 !

Perhaps not quite as much temperament in the Bruckner 9 as VPO/Proms but the climaxes to (i) and (iii) at least as stunning.
A pretty formidable Bruckner sound from the LSO. I look forward to comparing notes later in the week. Microphones present
so a LSO Live issue anticipated. Hope you enjoyed the Britten on the South Bank

I did see a chap wandering around with a hmv bag that I thought could be our Petrushka ?

[jayne lee wilson]

I dunno, you Londoners are a bit spoilt. Still living on the devastating DSCH 4 with RLPO/Petrenko from 7 Feb (and I only got to THAT via hefty doses of ibuprofen) now I have to hang on till 23 March for the Mahler 10 (ibuprofen or carbamaz + tissues...)

[Petrushka]

Thank you Amateur. Yes, I left fully satisfied - and a bit more. What a performance from Ms Pires in the Concerto 2,
superb cadenza. Had no idea she is nearly 70 !

Perhaps not quite as much temperament in the Bruckner 9 as VPO/Proms but the climaxes to (i) and (iii) at least as stunning.
A pretty formidable Bruckner sound from the LSO. I look forward to comparing notes later in the week. Microphones present
so a LSO Live issue anticipated. Hope you enjoyed the Britten on the South Bank

I did see a chap wandering around with a hmv bag that I thought could be our Petrushka ?

Hi Alison, belated birthday greetings to you. No, not me with a HMV bag. Took one look in the Oxford Street shop and fled. Utterly awful.

Yes, the Bruckner was superb and some wonderful playing from an in-form LSO. Good to see the LSO Live mics there - one to look forward to!

[Alison]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2013/feb/18/lso-haitink-review

Review of the Beethoven/Bruckner here. I was in the stalls but didnt see the mouse !

[bluestateprommer]

Bernard Haitink, a sometimes reserved and reluctant interviewee, gave a fascinating and quite lengthy interview to Tom Service on Music Matters yesterday.

I realised that Tom has developed a Haintink-proof interviewing style. Time and again he made an assertion about Haitink's career or working methods which caused the usually placid maestro to mount a gentle reproach and to provide instead less fanciful responses, full of insights. Brilliant!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01qqf49

Well, it's not as though Tom Service lacks experience in interviewing Bernard Haitink:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/sep/22/passion-and-pain-bernard-haitink

There's also this article, although it focuses on Uncle Bernie's conducting master class that summer rather than just him:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/aug/11/bernard-haitink-masterclass

Lucky folks there who got to see him in action in London. He's scheduled for just one weekend of concerts next season in Chicago, early November, Mozart 27 with Emanuel Ax and Bruckner 4. He's also scheduled for May 2014 with the New York Philharmonic, Mahler 3. The latter does bring up RF's point, although I think Leonard Bernstein shares a due portion of the 'blame' for the over-programming of Mahler, although things have perhaps tailed off a tad after the two consecutive anniversary years.

Cute to hear about the mouse in the Barbican, which reminds me that someone once made a video of a cat wandering in the Mann Auditorium while the Israel Philharmonic was on stage, though not while they were playing. Just goes to show that other species can be musical sometimes :) . The cats actually curl up sometimes when I listen to a CD, although that doesn't mean that they "get" the music, of course ;) .

[Sir Velo]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2013...haitink-review

Review of the Beethoven/Bruckner here. I was in the stalls but didnt see the mouse !

The problem with interviewing Haitink is, as Tom Service admitted in his intro, that the man is so self-effacing. Hence there is no blowing of the trumpet: "What makes you a great conductor Bernard?" "That's not for me to judge. I don't know if I am a good conductor"; and so on. TS, however, did miss a golden opportunity to press Haitink further when he admitted that he was a different conductor from the younger generation. Unfortunately TS' unsubtle question was something like: "are you better than them?" Experienced and wary interviewees like Haitink clam up at this sort of questioning, because they know they will be misquoted. They have to be drawn out, and so we lost the chance for some fascinating insights. Hey ho.