Bernard Haitink (23.08.2011 - Live - Lucerne) FLAC

Chamber Orchestra of Europe | Bernard Haitink | Hanno Müller-Brachmann
Tue, 23 August 2011 | 19.30 | KKL Luzern, Concert Hall
Chamber Orchestra of Europe 

Chamber Orchestra of Europe | Bernard Haitink conductor | Hanno Müller-Brachmann bass-baritone
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
“Academic Festival Overture”, Op. 80

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
“Memnon”, “Geheimes” and “An Schwager Kronos,” orchestrated by Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Symphony No. 3 in F major, Op. 90



A first-time undertaking even for Bernard Haitink:  Despite 50 years of experience leading the world’s top orchestras, Haitink is conducting a comprehensive Brahms cycle for the first time, which he launched last autumn for LUCERNE FESTIVAL. He has good reasons for his choice to do so with the reduced forces of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe – and a historical model to draw on: “Brahms’s favorite orchestra, the Meiningen Court Orchestra, was a leading ensemble of the time and numbered about as many members,” explains Haitink. “This smaller ensemble makes the rich polyphony of the music of Brahms more easily discernible; his structures become clearer to the ear, his very sound more transparent.” For this is what matters to the Maestro: to bring this music to life with fluent tempos, to avoid excessive sentimentality and subjective indulgence – in short, to go back to the roots. As Haitink himself puts it: “The instructions Brahms gives in his scores unambiguously forbid any eccentricities.”