Haitink - M9 - Chicago, June 2011

[Michael]

Rf318, I like your insite.  And thanks for the recommendation...I will have to give Prokofiev 6 a listen in the near future!  Speaking of Prokofiev, I for one love the Lieutenant Kijé Suite, especially the Romance second movement.  Beautiful and mysterious.
John, I agree with you.  It all comes down to what state of mind you are in when you listen to a Mahler work.  I have experience only with the Sixth and Ninth, and I find that whatever mood I am in, the music "speaks" my emotions in a way words could not.  I do not understand it.

[etucker82]

Haitink did M9 with the LSO at the Proms last year and it got raves from every critic.  But I listened to the BBC relay online (I live in Maryland) and was not nearly as impressed.  It was paced with extreme care and very well played, but it was also completely lacking in any element of danger.  It sounded more proper for Bruckner than Mahler. 

For me, Haitink is nothing less than a very good conductor who is capable of giving very great performances (like his Alpensinfonie).  But it says something a little depressing about the state of classical music today that he's thought of today as one of the great masters.  If he were a generation or two older I wonder if he'd have been thought of in the same way as conductors like Carl Schuricht or Joseph Keilberth were: well-respected, occasionally revered, but decidedly in the second tier. 

[John Kim]

Haitink did M9 with the LSO at the Proms last year and it got raves from every critic.  But I listened to the BBC relay online (I live in Maryland) and was not nearly as impressed.  It was paced with extreme care and very well played, but it was also completely lacking in any element of danger.  It sounded more proper for Bruckner than Mahler.  

For me, Haitink is nothing less than a very good conductor who is capable of giving very great performances (like his Alpensinfonie).  But it says something a little depressing about the state of classical music today that he's thought of today as one of the great masters.  If he were a generation or two older I wonder if he'd have been thought of in the same way as conductors like Carl Schuricht or Joseph Keilberth were: well-respected, occasionally revered, but decidedly in the second tier.  

But despite all the weaknesses you pointed out I like it! .

What mesmerized me in this performance was the level of "fullness" (for lack of words) through which both the conductor and players were able to communicate with the audience. Bedside being carefully laid out, every bar and measure sounded fully nourished carrying a weight and a meaning of some sort. Unlike you, I felt calm but undeniable tension in this performance. I felt the same for Haitink's marvelous LSO concert of M6th a couple years ago.

John,

[etucker82]

I can certainly sympathize with that feeling, as that's exactly how I feel about Haitink in other pieces.  And I must concede, parts of that performance were magnificent.  But I didn't feel as though that weight could be sustained all the way through the performance because Haitink seems to have a resolute refusal to inflect the piece.  In certain Mahler pieces in which the form is more severely constructed (particularly the 4th and 6th) this somewhat extremist non-intervention will not matter as much - at least not for me.  I really like Haitink's latest M4 and M6, mixed reviews or not.  But I suppose for Mahler 9 I either like it uptempo or flexible, my favorites at this point are Abbado, Bernstein, Barbirolli, Kubelik and yes, Bruno Walter.  (...though I make an exception for Riccardo Chailly)