In 1956, Bernard Haitink conducted the Concertgebouworkest for the first time and together they would play more than 1,500 concerts across the globe. Besides his modesty, his humanity, his musical taste, and his honesty to the music, three words come to mind when one thinks of Haitink and his orchestra: Sound, Trust and Magic. Jörgen van Rijen, Principal trombone of the Concertgebouworkest, said at a memorial concert in February this year, “Every time with him [Haitink] the orchestra sounded warmer, deeper and richer, from the first moment he started to rehearse. How he did that is difficult to tell … he always gave us musicians the feeling he trusted you, that he was there to help, not to interfere.”
This huge set is "an initiative of Radio Netherlands (the Dutch World Service) and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra…" presented to Bernard Haitink on his seventieth birthday as a tribute to his consummate musicmaking." Haitink, born in Amsterdam in 1929, became joint chief Conductor of the Concertebouw in 1961, along with Eugen Jochum, and was its chief conductor from 1963 to 1988. Like his predecessor, Eduard van Beinum, Haitink also was principal conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, from 1967 to 1979, and in 1978 became musical Director of the Glyndebourne Opera. Ten years later he became musical director of the Royal Opera House Covent Garden. Haitink guest conducted most of the major orchestras of the world and has received numerous awards for his services to music. In January 1999 Haitink was named "Honorary Conductor of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra."
Composer: Gustav Mahler
Performer: Elly Ameling, Aafje Heynis, Maureen Forrester, Ileana Cotrubas, Hermann Prey, Marianne Dieleman, Birgit Finnilä, Heather Harper, Hanneke van Bork, William Cochran, Hans Sotin
Conductor: Bernard Haitink
Orchestra/Ensemble: Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Netherlands Radio Chorus, St. Willibrod Boy's Choir, Netherlands Radio Women's Chorus, Stern des Volks, Amsterdam Toonkunst Chorus, Collegium Musicum Amstelodamense, St. Pius X Children's Choir, St. Willibrod Children's Chorus
The Dutch conductor Bernard Haitink and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra were linked by a long and intensive artistic collaboration, brought to an abrupt end by his death in October 2021. BR-KLASSIK now presents outstanding and as yet unreleased live recordings of concerts from the past years. This recording of Mahler's Seventh Symphony documents concerts from February 2011 in Munich’s Philharmonie im Gasteig. Haitink first conducted a Munich subscription concert in 1958, and from then on he repeatedly stood on the podium of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra – either in the Herkulessaal of the Residenz or in the Philharmonie im Gasteig.
Haitink's Mahler interpretations offer a combination of objectivity and distance, emotional reflection and release, continuity and tradition. Under Haitink, the Concertgebouw secured its reputation as one of the world's great Mahler orchestras and their cycle of the composer's symphonies and orchestral songs stands as witness to the orchestra's feeling for its deep history and to the enduring artistry of its conductor.