Beethoven Haitink London Tower Records

The film received a pasting from UK critics but as the soundtrack chooses from a vast archive of great performances, it’s possible to retrieve something from the experience. The opening track, the Grosse Fuge, is a bold choice given the wider audience for whom this soundtrack is aiming. It receives a magnificent performance from the Takács Quartet which is as finely attuned to the music’s jagged outcrops as its sheltered byways. The uninterrupted flow of the sweet and soulful second movement of the third Razumovsky is pure poetry in their hands. Ashkenazy gives a brilliant but never rushed performance of the finale to the early Sonata in C minor and his straightforward manner in the Arietta from Beethoven’s last sonata is illuminated by the very clear Decca recording. Haitink’s performance of the finale of the Ninth Symphony with the Royal Concertgebouw and a quartet of soloists led by Lucia Popp does not storm the heavens and I don’t ever recall being so aware of this movement’s proceeding by paragraphs. However, it would seem to have found a comfortable place in a well planned and wide-ranging celebration of Beethoven’s genius.

Released in time for the conductor’s 90th birthday, here’s a treasurable memento of Bernard Haitink’s close rapport with the LSO. They’ve already given us an impressive symphony cycle, and now the same qualities of classy musicianship and Haitink’s winningly ego-free approach make for very satisfying listening. In the Piano Concerto No. 2, Pires articulates the solo line with great clarity and considerable poetry (above all in the Adagio). In the Triple Concerto, Lars Vogt, alongside two LSO principals, offers a similar combination of sense and fantasy, the music sparkling when required. A dramatic performance of the seldom-heard Leonore Overture No. 2 completes a Beethovenian feast.

Translucence, transparency – warmth' are the qualities identified by Bernard Haitink as necessary for an ideal sound performance of Beethoven's only opera, and all are present in this fantastic recording of Katharina Thalbach's new production for Opernhaus Zurich. Haitink conducts the Zurich Opera Orchestra in a magnificent performance in which Leonore Overture No. 3 provides an interlude between the two scenes of the second act, following a tradition started by Gustav Mahler.

Bernard Haitink - Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra - Live - The Radio Recordings (1999) {14CD Box Set Q Disc 97014}
XLD rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 4.33 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 2.08 Gb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 11 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1999 Q Disc | 97014
Classical / Orchestral

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."