Word: haitink
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...particular interest was not necessarily the music, there was no sense in a conductor or concert master waiting for silence: the orchestra simply played--preferably loudly at first--to quiet the crowd. It is partly for this reason that most symphonies from the classical begin with a forte. When Haitink took the stage, the noise from the crowd of the elderly and well-to-do did not diminish. Thus, he dove straight into the cataclysmic opening bars of Brahms to silence the audience...
Immediately, the intense crispness of the BSO under Haitink struck the listener. This orchestra underwent a complete transformation under their visiting leader; suddenly, the BSO was the Concert-gebouw's forgotten sibling. The string pizzacati were sharp and their entrances were flawless. In the second movement, the wind choruses were perfectly tuned and placed. Then came the crowning moment--the horn-violin duo, in which concertmaster Malcolm Lowe played so exquisitely as to melt one's heart...
...delivered the third movement's fluid onset, a walking clarinet line with string accompaniment much like the third movement of his Clarinet Quintet, with serenity and warmth. The brass sounded a bit jumbled in the tutti, but Haitink brought the movement to a clean closure...
...Haitink's finale constituted nothing less than a triumph. The "alpenhorn" theme flowed majestically through the Shed and Lawn, as did the brass chorale that follows it. Haitink's initial reading of the main theme (the one derived from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony) seemed last at first. The tempo, however, reaped its reward in the development, instead of the usual disconnected and episodic character of that section. Haitink's interpretation was brisk and lively. He could only be faulted for his treatment of the piece's climax--the return of the chorale--which he sprinted through with inappropriate disinterest...
...could certainly gain immense quality and repertoire from a music director of Haitink's skills. It's true that Seiji Ozawa hasn't been talking about retirement, but Haitink gave the orchestra glimpses of Herbert von Karaian's Berlin Philharmonic, Carlos Kleiber's Vienna Philharmonic and George Szell's Cleveland Orchestra. If they could also strengthen their sound with a few more powerful players, the BSO would catapult itself back to the stature it knew under Charles Munch--that of the foremost symphony in the nation...