Here is my Thursday December 11 Chicago Sun-Times and suntimes.com review of the Tuesday December 9 Chicago Symphony Orchestra concert with CSO principal conductor Bernard Haitink and the December 7 Civic Orchestra of Chicago concert with Haitink and David Afkham conducting.
Parting is sweet sorrow at CSO curtain closer
Players bid farewell, Haitink fall run ends
BY ANDREW PATNER
Tuesday night at Orchestra Hall was bittersweet. Two mainstays of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra over the last decades were saluted formally on their retirements. And the magic that has been made by the CSO and its principal conductor Bernard Haitink these past weeks came to a temporary end.
Bassoon, contrabassoon, and saxophone player Burl Lane (above, right) joined the CSO in 1965 when Jean Martinon was music director, and Robert Swan (above, left) was appointed to the viola section by Sir Georg Solti in 1972. Together, as CSO President Deborah Rutter noted from the stage, they have given almost 80 years of service to the orchestra and its audience. Each man is known offstage as well for his passionate commitment to the CSO, his warmth and his humor; all were on display in remarks Lane and Swan made before receiving the Theodore Thomas Medal from Haitink.
(Sun-Times file)
In a one-night-only concert that repeated two Haitink specialties from last season as a preparation for the orchestra’s upcoming tour of the Far East, an audience sat transfixed by the partnership between conductor and players that has emerged in Haitink’s 80th year.
Haydn’s 1794 Symphony No. 101, called The Clock for its ticking sounds in its hypnotic slow movement, showed off Haitink’s special way with Haydn -- attentive, alive, helping us to find the surprise in all of the composer’s works. The massive Bruckner Symphony No. 7, written 90 years after the Haydn, might seem to come from a different world, but Haitink showed how he preps the listeners’ ears with one work to take them into new perspectives on realms they thought they knew.
The Bruckner has been a hit for Haitink on the CSO’s own CD label Resound, and while Haitink by no means has Daniel Barenboim’s unpredictability, he made it clear that he is not afraid to be spontaneous. With a judicious use of pauses and rests, focus on unexpected lines and inner voices and a special spark at the beginning of each movement, Haitink brushed away any sense of expected familiarity.
Haitink did the same on Sunday when he led the first half of a concert by the CSO’s junior partner, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago. With only two short rehearsals, Haitink had the Civic’s players giving a performance of Schubert’s Unfinished Eighth Symphony that was as professional as that of most major orchestras but also filled with depth and insight.
A Haitink protege, the German-Parsi David Afkham, 25, the recent winner of the Donatella Flick competition in London, showed maturity and care in a difficult score, Richard Strauss’s early Death and Transfiguration. Credit as well the excellent general preparation of Civic by its principal conductor Cliff Colnot.
Comments