| Date and venue | Title | Submitted by |
|---|---|---|
| 17-Feb-2013 Barbican Centre: Hall | Trenchant Beethoven and Bruckner from Haitink, Pires and the LSO | Ken Ward, Editor, The Bruckner Journal |
 The London Symphony Orchestra presented the themes of the first movement of Beethoven’s Second Piano Concerto very nicely indeed, benefiting from the clarity, moderation and wisdom with which a lifetime of experience has endowed their conductor for this concert. The string sound was beautiful and full but with plenty of room for detail, and the woodwinds gave their gentle interjections with perfectly judged crescendos. All was right with the world and it sounded as though we were in for a nice, comfortable concerto as a prelude to the mighty Bruckner symphony to follow.
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| 7-Sep-2012 Royal Albert Hall | Prom 75: Haydn and Strauss with the Vienna Philharmonic | Tom Hancox |
 It was in the 1790s, when Haydn came to England at the invitation of London-based impresario Johann Peter Salomon, that the twelve 'London' symphonies were composed. They were to be Haydn's last essays in the genre, examples in which, he said, he had to 'change many things for the English public'. Yet, whatever Haydn's vernacular adaptations to the symphony were, this was an account that had an indelible Viennese stamp, in both sound and approach.
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| 6-Sep-2012 Royal Albert Hall | Prom 73: Perahia, Haitink and the Vienna Philharmonic | David Karlin |
 Beethoven's music in general, and the Fourth Piano Concerto in particular, is on the cusp between the Classical and the Romantic: the Classical forms are stretched to their limit but left unbroken, while Beethoven provides plenty of opportunity for a Romantically-minded interpreter to charge off in any number of wild directions. In the first half of last night's Prom, Murray Perahia and the Vienna Philharmonic gave us a performance very much towards the Classical end of the spectrum, with a sound fascinatingly different from many Beethoven interpretations.
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| 25-Aug-2012 Großes Festspielhaus | In Salzburg, unflinching Bruckner from Bernard Haitink and the Vienna Philharmonic | Zwölftöner |
 The Vienna Philharmonic has received a mixed reception at the Proms in recent years, but this programme of Beethoven and Bruckner with Murray Perahia and Bernard Haitink, which was performed in Salzburg this weekend and tours to London next week, will be sure to be met with critical approval.
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| 26-Jun-2012 Royal College of Music: Amaryllis Fleming Concert Hall | Haitink and the outstanding RCM Orchestra play Bruckner 8 | Ken Ward, Editor, The Bruckner Journal |
 The opening theme of Bruckner’s Symphony no. 8 is announced in the depths of the orchestra; with the precise rhythm of the main theme of the first movement of Beethoven’s 9th and something of the character of the Siegfried motive from Götterdämmerung, it contains energy and heroic aspiration, but also a harmonic instability that gives it a searching and unsettled quality. Throughout the movement it is treated to no end of variation, as though searching for a form in which it could at last settle.Read full review... | ||
| 14-Jun-2012 Barbican Centre: Hall | Funeral music from Purcell and Bruckner frames Pires' magical Mozart | Ken Ward, Editor, The Bruckner Journal |
 The brass, winds and percussion of the LSO opened the concert with a powerful, dramatic rendition of Purcell’s Music for the funeral of Queen Mary, arranged to sharpen the effect for modern ears by Steven Stucky. It is a piece for public mourning, and the great strokes on the timpani and bass drum bring to mind those fireman’s funeral strokes that introduce the finale of Mahler’s Tenth Symphony, but with an added kaleidoscope of colours provided by xylophones, tubular bells and piano.Read full review... | ||
| 20-May-2012 Barbican Centre: Hall | A Bruckner 5 of Integrity and Nobility from Haitink and the Concertgebouw | Ken Ward, Editor, The Bruckner Journal |
 Bruckner moved to Vienna in 1868 to take up the post of Professor of Organ, Harmony and Counterpoint at the Conservatory. Seven years later, in 1875, he was still ruing the day he had left his local city of Linz: only one symphony had been performed, his income was meagre and he envisaged going to debtors’ jail, “where I can descant to my heart’s content on my folly in ever coming to Vienna.” But the day after writing that letter he began his Fifth Symphony, starting with the Adagio and its sorrowful oboe theme.Read full review... | ||
| 20-Aug-2011 Royal Albert Hall | Prom 49: Haitink reveals Brahms' softer side | Ruth Mariner |
 In many senses, Brahms is a 'marmite' composer. He is rarely met with indifference. Whilst some glorify the power and force of his orchestral writing, others shy away from this Germanic 'heaviness'; whilst some idolize his ability to weave passages and themes through one another to culminate in fierce climaxes, others condemn a fragmented and 'academic' style of writing.
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| 19-Aug-2011 Royal Albert Hall | Prom 47: COE, Ax and Haitink | Tom Hancox |
 Criticism of Brahms' orchestration, so often concerned with supposedly clumsy couplings and other textural decisions, would have little to go on after a performance like this. The orchestral sound was lean, but never malnourished, exposing the frame without making it skeletal. Haitink's approach to the symphony did much to lighten the sonorities too, insisting on highly articulated phrases, so that the lines never lagged or became ambiguous in their direction.Read full review... | ||
| 16-Jun-2011 Barbican Centre: Hall | Maria João Pires peforms Mozart with the LSO | Hannah Gill |
 There is a remarkable story about Portugese pianist Maria João Pires and a Mozart concerto, which she was due to perform with Riccardo Chailly in Amsterdam. The orchestra played the opening bars of the D minor concerto; however, this was not the one Pires was expecting to play. Miraculously, Pires continued to give an assured performance, revealing her extraordinary musical capacity. Thankfully, there was no such confusion on this occasion, although Pires had stepped in last minute to replace an indisposed Murray Perahia, who had been due to perform the Schumann concerto.
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| 16-Jun-2011 Barbican Centre: Hall | "Time out of Mind" in Mozart and Bruckner | Ken Ward, Editor, The Bruckner Journal |
| When this deeply thoughtful account of Bruckner’s 4th Symphony came to its end I was reminded of a line from Bob Dylan’s song "It ain’t dark yet, (but it’s getting there)" on his album Time Out of Mind, where he sings, "I know it looks like I’m moving, but I’m standing still." You had the sense of an immense journey having taken place, but at its close you realised that you had somehow been in the same place throughout. Read full review... | ||
