Haitink/CSO M1 - BORING!!!!

[barry guerrero]

OK guys; as you know, I beat up pretty hard on Haitink's CSO M3 and M6. When I received a copy of his Mahler 1, believe me, I wanted to be wrong. I wanted to like this, and discover that perhaps I was overlooking something in those two previous releases. I'm afraid not! While beautifully recorded and very well played, this is possibly THE DULLEST Mahler 1st I've ever heard. The first movement has absolutely no sense of discovery; self discovery; joie de vivre (however that's spelled) - nothin'. It's just there; slow and dull. I like the slower than normal tempo for Haitink's scherzo (Boulez's sounded very breathless to me), but there's little or no sense of swing to go along with it. The third movement is even worse. It's just there - there's no sense of the East European village band music being animated in any way. It's just clean, soft, and polite. In the finale - sure! - the loud parts are fine. Loud parts are always fine with the CSO, and that's my main complaint: when the music isn't being fast and loud, Haitink is simply slow, pretty, and very, very dull.

I'm sorry, but the talents of Haitink and the CSO were far better suited for the Shostakovich 4th, where the consistently slow tempi lent an air of 20th century alienation and desolation; combined with allowing Chicago's wound-up brass section to go completely bonkers in the third movement's final peroration. That fit them perfectly.

[Jot N. Tittle]

By golly, Barry, you've got it right.

I heard Haitink and the CSO perform this and the Shostakovich in Carnegie Hall last year. For Mahler they just played the notes. Next evening, for Shostakovich they came to life and played music.

     . & '

[sbugala]

I don't know when the cut-off is, but somewhere in the late 80's/early 90's, Haitink sure seemed to run out of interesting things to say.  It's too bad, because I still seek out a lot of his recordings (especially on LP, since they sound fantastic.)  I've heard great things about his CSO Shostakovich 4th, but I still don't trust the reviews because his recent stuff has burned me so badly.  I'd like to think he has a good Mahler 9th or Bruckner 9th left in him, but I'm beginning to doubt it.  But I often LIKE being wrong on these matters.  I sincerely hope I am. 

[Don]

Haitink's 1970s Mahler Symphonies, mostly only available in a box set on CD, are quite good. I like the above posters have been a bit disappointed in his newest readings.

I have Bernstein/RCO (both disc and the recent download) the old Horenstein and the Geilen (strange coupling with Ives "Central Park in the Dark" and "The Unanswered Question" to satisfy my desire for M1.

[barry guerrero]

I agree that Haitink's early Mahler recordings are quite good. Believe me, I didn't want to be disappointed by this latest offering. But I refuse to cover up for him or anyone else.

[Leo K]

and the Geilen (strange coupling with Ives "Central Park in the Dark" and "The Unanswered Question" to satisfy my desire for M1.

Actually...this coupling is quite illuminating...especially when listening to the airy. pastoral insect "hum" at the start M1 with the "silence of the druids" in Ives' unanswered question...both passages are as suspended in time (unfortunately, this happens in Haitink's case as well!)...


--Todd

[Amphissa]

I don't know when the cut-off is, but somewhere in the late 80's/early 90's, Haitink sure seemed to run out of interesting things to say.  It's too bad, because I still seek out a lot of his recordings (especially on LP, since they sound fantastic.) 

Agree. The recordings with RCO on LPs sound very good, and the performances are certainly much better than later years. His recordings of Brahms and Beethoven with LSO sound good, especially the SACD, but the performances are so dreadfully boring. Haitink has never been a dynamic conductor and I've never been particularly thrilled with his recordings, but the man has become downright somnolent in the past couple of decades. His early Shostakovich cycles was highly regarded back when it was released, but even that was lacking in passion to me. I guess I have just never figured out why we keep hearing new recordings by this guy. He never lived up to his early promise.

Hey Barry, looks like you will have several opportunities to hear Mahler this year, including an M1 at the beginning of the season with MTT/SFO, and another M1 at the end of the season with "The Dude" conducting LAPO - as well as MTT/SFO doing M2, M5, and songs. I know you aren't particularly thrilled with MTT's Mahler, but at least he's better than Haitink!

[barry guerrero]

Agreed, but I really do think that MTT needs to find another shtick. He has sorted painted himself into a corner with Mahler now, and I predicted that this would happen. I'm sure he's fighting the marketing department in his attempts to play more Ives, Varese, etc.

[Russell]

I don't know when the cut-off is, but somewhere in the late 80's/early 90's, Haitink sure seemed to run out of interesting things to say.  It's too bad, because I still seek out a lot of his recordings (especially on LP, since they sound fantastic.) 

Agree. The recordings with RCO on LPs sound very good, and the performances are certainly much better than later years. His recordings of Brahms and Beethoven with LSO sound good, especially the SACD, but the performances are so dreadfully boring. Haitink has never been a dynamic conductor and I've never been particularly thrilled with his recordings, but the man has become downright somnolent in the past couple of decades. His early Shostakovich cycles was highly regarded back when it was released, but even that was lacking in passion to me. I guess I have just never figured out why we keep hearing new recordings by this guy. He never lived up to his early promise.

I've gotta disagree on the LSO Beethoven cycle--I think it's one of the more exciting ones out there among modern sets (particularly in nos 5, 6, 7, and 9).  I was really quite taken aback by those performances, as they are so uncharacteristic of what Haitink has been doing in recent years.  (His LSO Brahms is indeed dreadfully boring.)  Perhaps the use of the Barenreiter editions in the Beethoven--the same ones Zinman used in his set--perked him up a bit?

Aside from those Beethovens, I agree that most of what Haitink has done since 1980 or so has been pretty dull and stodgy.  For me, his heyday was in the 60's and 70's, turning out one great recording after another on Philips.  I still treasure those performances.  It's really strange how dull and boring he's become since then.

Russell

[barry guerrero]

Back to MTT and Mahler; here's a strange idea that he's doing this coming September. If he had done this before embarking on his S.F. Mahler cycle, I think it would have made more sense. Anyway   .      .    . 

Mahler
Origins and Legacies

Music to include Songs of a Wayfarer (Hampson, of course), Piano Quartet, selections from Symphonies 2, 3, and 7, early songs for voice and piano, and Scherzo from Hans Rott's Symphony in E major

.     .     .    why not just perform the entire Hans Rott symphony?

Barry

[Amphissa]

.     .     .    why not just perform the entire Hans Rott symphony?

Uh, because it's not especially good? If it were not for the few snippets in it that Mahler grabbed, it would be forgotten and lost forever.

I am a big fan of forgotten composers -- everyone from Martucci to Myaskovsky, Roentgen to Rubinstein, Scharwenka to Lyapunov. Perhaps Rott would have become a Raff, had he lived, but the cruel reality is that he did not, and the one symphony he did leave behind is just a youth work of little interest -- other than the few ideas that were memorialized by Mahler.

Just my opinion ...

Listen to Gliere's 3rd instead. Now there is a great symphony that should be played in concert halls around the world, and a worthy successor to Mahler and Strauss.

[barry guerrero]

Yep, gotta agree with you over Gliere's 3rd.

Barry

[John Kim]

Let's not forget that M1st was one of the low points in Haitink's traversal of Mahler cycle. It seems to be a piece that requires youthful energy, freshness, and all that that a conductor like him would never get right.

OTOH, I really LOVE Haitink/CSO Shosy 4th and to a lesser degree, his CSO M6th (I can see Barry's and Dave's eyes rattling ).

His London concert of M6th with LSO was another highlight that won't be erased from memory easily.

Did anybody try the recent Haitink/LPO Shosy 10th?

John,

[barry guerrero]

Hatink's second Concertgebouw recording of M1 - 1972 (ten years after his first one) - is really quite good. And sorry John, I have to disagree regarding Haitink's recent CSO M6. While very well played, I think it's the worst one I've ever heard from a purely interpretive standpoint. It has absolutely nothing to do with what the piece is all about. Perhaps the LSO one is better, but I'm not going to find out. For one thing, I'm done with conductors who turn "Andante Moderato" into a full-blown, Brucknerian adagio.

[cilea]

[...] While beautifully recorded and very well played, this is possibly THE DULLEST Mahler 1st I've ever heard. [...]

Dave Hurwitz seems to agree with Barry:

http://www.classicstoday.com/review.asp?ReviewNum=12129