Bernard Haitink and the LSO, Barbican

Acclaimed conductor Bernard Haitink will 86 by the time of these three concerts; such is his energy, however, that he will soon after lead the orchestra on a tour of Japan. This is an opportunity to enjoy the accumulated wisdom and insight of one of the last post-war greats. Haitink spent many distinguished years building a reputation as one of the great conductors at the unmatched Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, which he first conducted in 1956. Since leaving, in 1988, he has been able to choose from the pick of the podia worldwide. He has been music director at both Glyndebourne and Covent Garden, and held posts at many of the best American Orchestras, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, where he was principal conductor 2006-10. He is best known for his interpretations of the classical and romantic repertoire, from Mozart to Mahler, with particular expertise on Brahms, Bruckner and Wagner.
On 15 September Haintink teams up with American pianist Murray Perahia - one of the most exciting interpreters of Mozart’s piano concertos, with numerous award-winning recordings to his name - for a rendition of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 24, widely considered his greatest, and certainly the most extensively orchestrated and stylistically integrated. This is followed by one of Bruckner’s best-loved symphonies, his seventh; its flowing stateliness was, unfortunately, much-admired by Hitler, and it was the slow movement of this symphony that was played on German radio when the Führer’s death was announced.
On 20 September two more treasures of the orchestral repertoire appear, with Schubert’s heart-stopping Symphony No. 8 (“Unfinished”) and Mahler’s gigantic Symphony No.4, the latter with Anna Lucia Richter, one of the most exciting young sopranos emerging today. The rising German star has been dazzling audiences across Europe and America with her ability both in the opera house and chamber recitals, and the soprano solo in the Mahler - a complete recital of the song "Das himmlische Leben", a child’s vision of Heaven - will give her voice a wonderful platform.
Murray Perahia returns on September 23 for Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4, a dramatic delight. Begun - shockingly, at the premiere in 1808 - by the solo piano, it has a brief central slow movement, packed with suppressed emotion expressed by the orchestra tussling with the piano. This piece is followed by Brahms’ Symphony No. 1, a milestone both for the composer and in the history of music. Sometimes dubbed “Beethoven’s Tenth”, it took Brahms 14 years to complete, because, it’s often said, he felt the weight of Beethoven’s influence and genius so acutely. It’s one of the pieces Haitink knows best as a conductor, and seeing what may be his last ever live performance of it in London will also be an event of massive historical moment.