Vladimir Bernard Haitink: Great Symphonies Without Pathos
On October 21, 2021, Bernard Haitink died, a conductor who knew how to reveal great symphonies without outward pathos. A sparing gesture behind which stood the entire score, and climaxes that were not played up to the audience but arrived at.
Haitink began as a violinist in an orchestra, and at thirty-two he took over the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and led it for twenty-seven years. Then came the London Philharmonic, Glyndebourne, Covent Garden, Chicago.
Great symphonies without pathos
1. Complete cycles
Haitink recorded all the symphonies of Mahler and Bruckner, and Shostakovich, one of the first in the West, as a complete cycle. For many listeners these recordings were their first acquaintance with this music as a whole.
2. A sparing gesture
His gesture was sparing: no show, only the score and the orchestra. And that is why his climaxes sound special: they are not played for the public but arrived at, showing the capabilities and beauty of the orchestra rather than the conductor’s show.
3. The last concert
He gave his last concert at ninety, in Lucerne: Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony with the Vienna Philharmonic.
Photos: Anefo / Nationaal Archief (CC BY-SA 3.0 NL, CC0), Massimo Catarinella (CC BY-SA 3.0), Anton Huber (public domain) / Wikimedia Commons
