Bernard Haitink conducting the London Symphony Orchestra at Avery Fisher Hall, NYC 2006 Last Sunday Dutch conductor Bernard Haitink and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra received a Grammy Award in the ‘Best Orchestral Performance’ category for their take on Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 4 .
Haitink has been leading the Windy City’s Symphonic Orchestra into battle since 2006 as its principal conductor. For 27 years (until 1988, as you can read in The Low Countries) he served as principal conductor to the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (presently the 'world's best orchestra', as we already announced here). Outside of the Netherlands, Haitink was principal conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra from 1967 to 1979, did a stint as music director at Glyndebourne Opera from 1978 to 1988, and held the same position at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden from 1987 to 2002. From 2002 to 2004, he was chief conductor of the Dresden Staatskapelle. As a guest conductor, Haitink has served as principal guest conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1995 to 2004, when he took on the new title of conductor emeritus. In addition, he has appeared with l'Orchestre National de France and London Symphony Orchestra.
Final minutes of Mahler's 6th Symphony, performed by the Chicago Symphony with Bernard Haitink.
That’s quite an impressive resumé. ‘A powerful musician who has had an eminent career’, is how Anthony Tomassini called him in The New York Times in 2006, when Haitink and the London Symphony Orchestra began their five-concert survey of all nine symphonies of Beethoven in NYC. Haitink, who played the violin in orchestras before taking courses in conducting, was celebrated on this occasion by Tomassini as your typical level-headed Dutchman, a ‘true maestro’ whose authority is modulated by his self-effacing nature: ‘He is not a know-it-all. No interpretive agenda comes through in his performances. (…) Other conductors may bring out more of the mystery and gravity of these works or convey more tortured emotion and volatility. Mr. Haitink’s performances have been refreshingly un-neurotic.’
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