High Praise for Haitink at the RCM
Thursday 28 June 2012
Bernard Haitink’s two performances of Bruckner’s Symphony no 8 with the RCM Symphony Orchestra have been attracting rave reviews:
“The awe-struck silence at the end of Bruckner’s most blazing peroration said it all... This was a very special evening.
At the RCM, without commercial pressures on rehearsals, music-making is paramount, and Haitink has long epitomised that ideal… The players from the Royal College of Music rose handsomely to the occasion, with some spectacular solo work matched by a collective ensemble that seemed as cool and calm as Haitink’s economic conducting style, his deep understanding of Bruckner’s music despatched without histrionics, just a clear beat and an unwavering view of the final destination.”
Nick Breckenfield, classicalsource.com. Click here to read the complete review.
“Bernard Haitink’s visits to the Royal College of Music have become keenly anticipated events. Understandably. It’s tended to be the music of Bruckner and Mahler (with some Shostakovich and Strauss along the way) that Haitink has conducted with such memorable results. Bruckner was on the menu again, the mighty Eighth Symphony, here played for a second time – to mostly sublime and stupendous effect.
The music-making was as lively as the acoustic, an inspiring meeting of youth and experience. Over a perfectly formed 80 minutes, Bernard Haitink unfolded Bruckner 8 with spacious dignity, free of exaggeration but without denuding the agony and ecstasy that makes Bruckner’s music so inimitable.”
Colin Anderson, classicalsource.com. Click here to read the complete review.
“One cannot speak too highly of the quality of the orchestra that the RCM students have created this year. They were obviously well-rehearsed, and their responsiveness to the clarity of Haitink’s direction and the rigour of his interpretation, were very impressive indeed and made for an evening’s music-making of outstanding quality. It cannot be easy to rise to the demands of a conductor of such experience and quality, nor indeed to the requirements of this vast symphonic canvas and its composer’s singular vision. In this they acquitted themselves magnificently.”
Ken Ward, bachtrack.com. Click here to read the complete review.
