Bernard Haitink’s guest appearances with the London Symphony Orchestra have become much anticipated annual events. His return to the orchestra this month, two months after his 88th birthday, features the ninth symphonies by the composers that played a central part in establishing his international reputation half a century ago, Mahler and Bruckner.
The two performances of Bruckner’s Ninth next week will be prefaced by other works, but here the Mahler was presented in solitary splendour. It deserved nothing less. This was an exceptional performance, unblinkingly direct and faultlessly played by the LSO, apart from an occasional edgy harshness in the sound at climaxes. There has never been anything remotely indulgent about Haitink’s Mahler; it has always been objective and utterly coherent, and those qualities serve the Ninth Symphony perfectly.
That’s not to imply that anything in this reading seemed underpowered. It was clear from the ferocity of the first massive climax in the opening movement that no punches were going to be pulled, and while neither the comforting homeliness of the Ländler that followed, nor the sardonic edge to the Rondo Burlesque after that, were at all overdone, both movements made their point powerfully. Other conductors extract more pathos (or self-pity, depending on one’s view of Mahler and the conductor involved) from the final Adagio, but few usher it towards its faltering close with more care and gentle humanity than Haitink did here. If the Ninth is the work through which Mahler confronted his mortality and came to terms with it, then in this performance it was expressed unswervingly.
- Available on BBC iPlayer until 22 June.
