1st Addition: Finale of the Beethoven Ninth Symphony (added at the end)
2nd Addition: the Adagio of the Shostakovich Seventh Symphony, plus texts for the Siegfried scene (now moved toward the end of the post) and for the Mahler songs -- and, oh yes, some blocks of text.
Final Addition: Note the "part 1" now appended to the post title. Rather than continue stuffing more stuff into this post, I decided it makes more sense to spin it off into a separate post. Prime exhibit: what we might call -- if we were the sort of person who was inclined to think in such terms -- "Haitink vs. Jochum, in Mahler and Bruckner." Of course it's not really a competition (and so, as Dave Letterman used to say, "No wagering!"). Nevertheless, the careers of these two important conductors, of decidedly different generations, intersected importantly in Amsterdam in the early 1960s. Among the exhibits (and helping plug the Bruckner gap so troubling in part 1 of this post): the Adagio from Haitink's first and last recordings, from September 1966 and June 2019, thus more than half a century apart, of the Bruckner Seventh Symphony.
Wait, One Post-Final Addition: a block of text explaining the inclusion of the Beethoven Ninth finale.
Now, back to business --
FIRST, SOME QUICK MUSICAL IMPRESSIONS OF B.H.
Haitink, who turned 92 in March, remained active up to the end [well, not quite the end; I note that he did a round of "farewell" performances in 2019 -- Ed.], and is reported to have died peacefully in his sleep on the 21st of this month. Not a fancy or excess-prone conductor, but a committed and sincerely musical one -- it was a heckuva career. HANDEL: Music for the Royal Fireworks:
i. Ouverture
Concertgebouw Orchestra (Amsterdam), Bernard Haitink, cond. Philips, recorded in the Concertgebouw, c1962
BRAHMS: Double Concerto in A minor, Op. 102:
ii. Andante
Henryk Szeryng, violin; János Starker, cello; Concertgebouw Orchestra (Amsterdam), Bernard Haitink, cond. Philips, recorded in the Concertgebouw, September 1970
SHOSTAKOVICH: The Age of Gold (ballet suite), Op. 22a:
iii. Polka: Allegretto
London Philharmonic Orchestra, Bernard Haitink, cond. Decca, recorded in Kingsway Hall, November 1979
SHOSTAKOVICH: Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 54:
iii. Presto
Concertgebouw Orchestra (Amsterdam), Bernard Haitink, cond. Decca, recorded in the Concertgebouw, December 1983
[NOTE: For those unfamiliar with the strange musical beast that is Shostakovich 6, it begins with a fairly long and quite lovely Largo -- worthy of Mahler, who has to have been on Shostakovich's mind -- and then dashes into a startlingly goofy Allegro that segues into this giddy, dare I say foot-stomping Presto, about the last thing we could have seen coming from that opening Largo. AFTERTHOUGHT: I'm thinking we ought to spend some time with Shostakovich 6, perhaps with some hindsight-driven wonder at its position in the otherworldly sequence of Shostakovich's Sixth through Ninth Symphonies.]
by Ken
After I'd been thinking for a while as to what music might go into a proper Haitink memorial, I thought I'd just take a peek in the DWT Archive. I had no idea how much there is there, so at this preliminary stage, before I've given much thought to making this a proper Haitink memorial post, I thought we might just listen to a small portion of music we've already heard from him, starting with another Brahms concerto slow movement, hearing how he adjusts to noticeably different sorts of soloist -- note how he's a little more assertive with Brendel, more supportive with the more self-starting Arrau (with whom, we might recall, Haitink had already recorded a cycle of the five Beethoven piano concertos).
BRAHMS: Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat, Op. 83:
iii. Andante
Claudio Arrau, piano; Concertgebouw Orchestra (Amsterdam), Bernard Haitink, cond. Philips, recorded in the Concertgebouw, October 1969
Alfred Brendel, piano; Concertgebouw Orchestra (Amsterdam), Bernard Haitink, cond. Philips, recorded in the Concertgebouw, December 1973
And while we're following up on our opening selections, we might look at a very different side of Shostakovich from the jolly music we heard above: the searing Adagio of the Leningrad Symphony. Haitink, we might recall, recorded all 15 Shostakovich symphonies, split between the Concertgebouw and his beloved second orchestra, the London Philharmonic.
SHOSTAKOVICH: Symphony No. 7 in C, Op. 60 (Leningrad):
iii. Adagio
London Philharmonic Orchestra, Bernard Haitink, cond. Decca, recorded in Kingsway Hall, 1979
OF COURSE WE'VE GOT MAHLER . . .
Haitink in his younger years, the period from which we're mostly hearing himWe already heard, in the two Brahms concerto movements earlier on, what a good performing partner Haitink was with instrumentalists. He was also a fine partner for singers of all sorts, such as we hear in these three Mahler songs, also of highly various sorts.
MAHLER: Songs of a Wayfarer:
iv. "Die zwei blauen Augen" ("The two blue eyes")
Hermann Prey, baritone; Concertgebouw Orchestra (Amsterdam), Bernard Haitink, cond. Philips, recorded in the Concertgebouw, May 1970
MAHLER: Symphony No. 3: iv. Sehr langsam [Very slow]. Misterioso. (Alto solo: "O Mensch! Gib acht!")
Jard van Nes, contralto; Berlin Philharmonic, Bernard Haitink, cond. Philips, recorded in the Philharmonie, December 1990
MAHLER: Songs from "Des Knaben Wunderhorn" ["The Youth's Magic Horn"]: "Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen" ["Where the beautiful trumpets blow"]
"Who's out there and who knocks
and wakens me so softly?"
"It is your heart's beloved.
Get up and let me come to you!
Why should I linger here?
I see the dawn
and two bright stars.
I long to be with my darling,
with my heart's delight."
The maiden rose and let him in
and welcomed him.
"Welcome, my love,
you have been waiting so long!"
She held out to him her snow-white hand.
Far off the nightingale sang,
and the maiden began to weep.
"Oh, do not weep, my beloved;
oh, do not weep, my beloved!
In a year you will be mine.
You will surely be my own
as none other in the whole world!
O love on the green fields!
I go to war upon the green heath.
The green heath is so vast!
Wherever the beautiful trumpets blow,
there is my home, my home of green grass!"
-- translation by Marie Tobin
Jessye Norman, soprano; Concertgebouw Orchestra (Amsterdam), Bernard Haitink, cond. Philips, recorded in the Concertgebouw, April 1976
OF COURSE IT WASN'T JUST MAHLER'S SONGS
THAT HAITINK WAS FAMOUS FOR PERFORMING
And from the DWT Archive we've got him giving this beautiful account, from his Mahler symphony cycle with the Concertgebouw, of one of Mahler's most deeply felt symphonic movements -- in fact, the last symphonic movement he completed.
MAHLER: Symphony No. 9:
iv. Adagio
Concertgebouw Orchestra (Amsterdam), Bernard Haitink, cond. Philips, recorded in the Concertgebouw, June 1969
HAITINK THE OPERATIC CONDUCTOR
As his career developed, Haitink spent more and more time in opera houses. He did, after all, serve as music director of Glyndebourne (1978-88) and Covent Garden (1987-2002). But I can't say that his operatic recordings show a lot of flair for drama. Then again, the only live operatic performance of his I attended, one of the six performances in an end-of-season run of Fidelio in March-April 1982 which constituted his entire Met career, made a powerful impression. The performance had weight and shape and color and dramatic pulse, qualities that were pretty much banned from the building in the Levine years.
(Ironically -- I'm not sure that's the right word, but I can't think of a better one -- two seasons later much the same thing happened when Klaus Tennstedt came to town for a December 1983-January 1984 run of seven Fidelios which constituted his entire Met career: a different sort of performance, more dynamic, but again imbued with life on the musical side of things which were rarely encountered in those drab decades.)
Of course Haitink's opera recordings are always conscientious and musical, and among the surprising number of operatic excerpts I found in the DWT Archive, some others of which we might yet want to take a relisten to, I was pleased to find this extended Siegfried Act II scene from Haitink's complete EMI Ring (a cycle I don't return to that often, I have to say). This plays really nicely, don't you think? Not least for the plausible- and pleasurable-sounding Siegfried of Siegfried Jerusalem, which goes a long way toward making the character not just bearable but on the way to being sympathetic.
WAGNER: Scene with the "Forest Murmurs," from Siegfried, Act II: Siegfried, "Dass der mein Vater nicht ist" ["That he's not my father"] . . . Forest Murmurs . . . "Ein zankender Zwerg hat mir erzählt" ["A quarrelsome dwarf told me"]
Except that day has now broken, the setting hasn't changed since Scene 1 of Act II, which in the dark of night featured the first meeting since the final scene of Das Rheingold of WOTAN and ALBERICH, who -- by odd coincidence! -- were both to be found within stakeout distance of the entrance to the now-"dragon"-ized FAFNER's cave.
Deep forest: All the way in the background, the entrance to a cave. The ground rises toward the middle of the stage to a small flattened knoll, sinking again toward the back, so that only the upper part of the opening is visible to the audience. To the left a fissured cliff is seen through the trees.
At daybreak SIEGFRIED and MIME entered, SIEGFRIED carrying a sword hung in a girdle of rope. MIME was supposed to be teaching SIEGFRIED fear, and attempted it by describing the hideously ferocious dragon FAFNER, but none of it had any effect on SIEGFRIED. Even as MIME proposed to leave SIEGFRIED for an unspecified time, SIEGFRIED angrily drove him off. MIME headed into the forest singing to himself, "Fafner and Siegfried, Siegfried and Fafner, if only they might do each other in!"
SIEGFRIED [stretching out in the shade of a great tree]:
That he's not my father, how happy I feel.
Now for the first time I like the cool forest,
now at last blithe day smiles upon me,
now the loathsome creature has departed,
and I'll never see him again!
[He falls into silent meditation.]
What must my father have been like?
Ha! -- like myself, of course!
For if Mime had a son anywhere about,
would he not look exactly like Mime?
Just as filthy, senile, and gray,
little and crooked, hump-backed and lame,
with drooping ears and watery eyes --
away with the goblin!
I don't want to see him anymore.
Siegfried lies on his back and looks up through the branches of the trees.
From the orchestra: "Forest Murmurs"
But -- what did my mother look like?
That, I simply can't imagine to myself!
[very tenderly] Her lustrous eyes must surely have glistened
as brilliantly as the doe's -- only still more beautiful!
[very softly] When she had born me in travail and anxiety,
why did she then have to die?
Do all human mothers, then, die of their sons?
That would be sad indeed!
Oh, if only I, her son, might see my mother!
My mother! A human woman!
[He sighs softly and leans still farther back. Deep silence.]
Growing "Forest Murmurs"
SIEGFRIED's attention is at length caught by the song of a WOODBIRD.]
You lovely little bird, I've never heard you before!
Are you native here in the forest?
If only I understood its sweet twitter!
It would tell me something for sure -- perhaps -- about my mother?
"Ein zankender Zwerg hat mir erzählt"
("A quarrelsome dwarf told me")
A quarrelsome dwarf told me
that one might come to understand
the babbling of the tiny birds --
how might that well be possible?
Hey, I'll try to imitate it.
[His eye falling on a clump of reeds, he cuts one with his sword and proceeds to whittle himself a rough pipe.]
Perhaps I might sound like it on a reed!
Suppose I leave the language and attend to the tune;
if I sing its speech thus, I might perhaps understand
what it is saying too!
It has stopped and waits listening -- so off I go then!
He tries to imitate the bird's notes, without success
[ruefully] That doesn't sound right.
On the reed pipe the blithe tune doesn't come right.
It seems, little bird, I'm slow;
it's not to be learnt from you easily.
I'm completely put to shame now before the roguish listener.
It's attending and can't hear anything.
Heida! then listen to my horn now!
Even though nothing came of it on the stupid reed!
A forest tune, the blithest that ever I can blow,
you shall hear now.
By it I have tried to entice my boon companions;
so far nothing better than wolves and bears has come.
Let me see then who it will attract to me now --
a boon companion, or no?
Throwing the reed aside, Siegfried blows a lusty tune on his hunting horn
The huge dragon FAFNER rears up from his lair in the cave and yawns loudly, upon which SIEGFRIED turns and, catching sight of FAFNER, laughs aloud in astonishment.
SIEGFRIED: Ha ha! My song has conjured up something
really lovely this time, I must say!
You would make me a pretty comrade!
FAFNER [surprised at SIEGFRIED's presence]: What is there?
SIEGFRIED: Hey, if you're a beast that's good for speaking,
might one perhaps learn something from you?
Here is someone who does not know what fear is --
can he learn it from you?
FAFNER: Are you cocky?-- translation (basically) by Peggie Cochrane
Siegfried Jerusalem (t), Siegfried; Kurt Rydl (bs), Fafner; Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Bernard Haitink, cond. EMI, recorded in the Herkulessaal of the Residenz, Munich, November 1990
1st ADDITION: Finale of the Beethoven Ninth Symphony
In the first (quickish) version of this memorial tribute I already knew there were glaring omissions, like for example Beethoven and Bruckner, for which we would need to add some bits to the DWT Archive. Imagine my surprise to discover that, as far as I can tell, I have no Haitink Bruckner on CD! The Beethoven gap, however, we can plug up with this live performance that, as best I can tell, was recorded in 19980. (A Bruckner plug-in is currently in preparation.)
UPDATE: Further explanation. Not that we necessarily need an explanation for inclusion of the nothing-like-it finale of the Beethoven Ninth, but there is one. Back when Haitink, amid his voracious ongoing recording projects with the Concertgebouw in the '70s, got his crack at the Beethoven symphonies, I for one was kind of disappointed that he and Philips chose to do them with the London Philharmonic rather than the Concertgebouw. I know back then he gushed publicly about his newfound affection for the LPO, and Philips after all had within living memory done a Concertgebouw Beethoven symphony cycle with Jochum, so it made sense, I guess. And the Haitink-LPO Beethoven cycle was certainly nothing to be ashamed of. If I had no other recordings of these pieces, I imagine I could live happily enough with this set. It's just that I didn't find anything in it that compelled my attention.
Don't try to pin me down on dates, but it must have been in the late '70s, that a Haitink-Concertgebouw tour included a complete Beethoven symphony series in Carnegie Hall, of which I attended all but one concert, and this I loved. One of the things I remember most vividly is an Eroica that really sang. It's a symphony I couldn't have more respect or admiration for, but usually not so much love. That performance I loved. And I remember the final concert with the Ninth, which was quite glorious, kind of everything you hope a live Beethoven Ninth to be, which is to say a performance worthy of the piece. And then Philips made a live recording of a Haitink-Concertgebouw Ninth, which turned out to square pretty well with what I remembered from the New York performance. When it turned up years later in a $2.99 CD bin, I snapped it up.
BEETHOVEN: Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125:
iv. Finale: Presto -- Allegro assai
Janet Price, soprano; Birgit Finnilä, contralto; Horst R. Laubenthal, tenor; Marius Rintzler, bass-baritone; Concertgebouw Orchestra and Chorus (Amsterdam), Bernard Haitink, cond. Philips, recorded live in the Concertgebouw, October 1980
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