Word: haitink
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...born section, on their home Teutonic turf, played creditably but sometimes overpowered the strings. It wasn't that the brass were too loud--the strings just couldn't keep up. In fact, even Haitink's tight meter could not keep the strings from sounding a bit tired at the end of the piece...
...last movement, Kremer's articulations gained still more grace than in the previous two. His strong rendering of the famous passage on the E string reflected true mastery of the instrument. The balance between the soloist and orchestra towards the end of the piece was impeccable; Haitink and Kremer returned to the stage for numerous standing ovations...
...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...