baloney = bullshit Bruckner, like all great composers, is usually easy to conduct the obvious tempo leaves the conductor free to play (with his orchestra) with tonality & other stuff like it or not but I like Bruckner whoever is conducting and his Fifth I have heard for only half of my 80 years
For the non-Dutch speakers, here is a translation of the spoken parts of the intro: 00:10 - 00:18 (the rehearsal bit) "Don't force the upbeat. There should be a big (grand) sound, don't force it. Four bars before [rehearsal figure] A" 00:18-00:25 (the interview) "I find it extremely important to have a sort of musical-spiritual communication with the orchestra." 00:40-00:54 "You shouldn't suffocate a musician. That was one of Van Beijnum's [Haitink's predecessor as chief conductor] standard expressions: "you can do anything with an orchestra musician, but don't step on his heart". 01:08-01:20 "I have the reputation of not saying too much [in rehearsal]. And that actually pleases me. It should happen through your charisma, your hands, your craftsmanship" 01:41- 02:03 "Very often, there are excellent musicians, who are better than me. But they lack the talent that I have, and I am being immodest now, to show with your hands, with your hands and feet as it were, without verbal communication, what I want". [Then some babbling by the tv presenter telling us that because of Haitink's 80th birthday, for a week, every evening a concert shall be broadcast, yada yada yada] 02:38- 03:05 "when you start with that mysterious, extremely soft murmur, that we call a tremolo, in the string section, followed by the opening bars of the theme in the low strings, it is as if someone tries to say something that he cannot openly express . And then it is followed by this long ascent, which takes 80 minutes (chuckles)." 03:10- 03:29 "I remember that before the war, in 1938, I was nine years old then, I heard a Bruckner 8, under Van Beijnum, which was a radio recording. I was really smitten, and from that moment on, I was a Bruckner fan". 03:33- 03:44 "Maybe it's a bit cheap, but I compare this symphony to Chartres Cathedral, thát feeling" 03:51- 03:56 "[This music] belongs in a cathedral, a vast space" 04:14-04:41 "To me, it's often music from above the tree line. Often, it's these grand blocks....mountains....If I have to compare it to something...for me it is rooted in a mountain scenery". 04:46-05:33 "He was [incomprehensible, MK]. He has always lived in that world. Bruckner was a very primitive figure. I believe he never even left Austria. He was a school teacher in a two-mill town and later ended up in Vienna, where he felt completely estranged and where he received some vehement criticism. His Eight Symphony however was a great success. That was his pride, that piece was his legacy". 05:50- 06:25 INTERVIEWER: "One could say that Bruckner's Eighth is one long prayer" HAITINK: "Yeah...but I am not really...." INTERVIEWER: "Bruckner is" HAITINK: "That is a dangerous subject that I prefer not to touch. But..." INTERVIEWER: "For Bruckner..." HAITINK: "For Bruckner, yes. Especially the Adagio, the third movement, that in itself already spans 28 minutes...yes, indeed, one could say it is a long prayer" 06:28 "At the end, in the Finale, the hesitant opening returns, but now as a confirmation. It includes subjects from the Scherzo and the main subject of the Adagio. He welded all that together in an ingenious way. You can think of medieval paintings of praying people, with their hands like this. I could regard it like that".
Pour moi sans aucun doute la meilleure symphonie de Bruckner. Le jeu des harpes et le 3éme mouvement vous emportent jusqu'à l'extase. Merveilleuse composition et interprétation par un orchestre et un chef, fantastiques.
I. 07:49 Allegro moderato (minor) II. 24:37 Scherzo: Allegro moderato - Trio Langsam (C minor -->C major, Trio in A flat major) III. 40:59 Adagio: Feierlich langsam, doch night scleppend (D flat major) IV. 1:08:03 Finale: Feierlich, nicht schnell (C minor --> C major)
This was a lovely performance of Bruckner 8th, indeed. However, I still go back to the 1958 recording of the same work by Herbert von Karajan and the Berliner Philhamoniker - it was such a magisterial performance!
Hmmm Interesting. Matter of taste of course. I would put Furtwangler, Klemperer and Celibidache with Haitink as the best interpreters. For a work Ad majorem Dei gloriam, DGG and Karajan I find too antiseptically perfect, over-rehearsed.
I am a big admirer of BH, but I don't speak Dutch. Subtitles, anyone? I would love to hear commentary by the likes of this great maestro about music by 1 of my favorite composers, certainly one of the most intriguing. That's why I wish I could soak up his commentary.
I certainly had no trouble "understanding" what he & this fine group of musicians had to say when he led the performance. His reading with the CO back in the 1970s which Virginia Tech's WUVT-FM (I was a classical announcer there) received in narrated live concert format for airplay in a Radio Nederland box, will always be my favorite. Certainly it would appear the CO has virtually been his own for many of his professional years. May God bless him as he turns 88 very soon. What a pleasure to find this gem of a concert!
His English is perfectly fine when he speaks it, better than most, in fact. He just didn't have occasion to use it in the prelude interviews. But I speak enough German (a companion language) to understand much of what he was saying.
@@replyhere590 I can't put any subtitles, since this is not my channel, but here it goes: 00:10 - 00:18 (the rehearsal bit) "Don't force the upbeat. There should be a big (grand) sound, don't force it. Four bars before [rehearsal figure] A" 00:18-00:25 (the interview) "I find it extremely important to have a sort of musical-spiritual communication with the orchestra." 00:40-00:54 "You shouldn't suffocate a musician. That was one of Van Beijnum's [Haitink's predecessor as chief conductor] standard expressions: "you can do anything with an orchestra musician, but don't step on his heart". 01:08-01:20 "I have the reputation of not saying too much [in rehearsal]. And that actually pleases me. It should happen through your charisma, your hands, your craftsmanship" 01:41- 02:03 "Very often, there are excellent musicians, who are better than me. But they lack the talent that I have, and I am being immodest now, to show with your hands, with your hands and feet as it were, without verbal communication, what I want". [Then some babbling by the tv presenter telling us that because of Haitink's 80th birthday, for a week, every evening a concert shall be broadcast, yada yada yada] 02:38- 03:05 "when you start with that mysterious, extremely soft murmur, that we call a tremolo, in the string section, followed by the opening bars of the theme in the low strings, it is as if someone tries to say something that he cannot openly express . And then it is followed by this long ascent, which takes 80 minutes (chuckles)." 03:10- 03:29 "I remember that before the war, in 1938, I was nine years old then, I heard a Bruckner 8, under Van Beijnum, which was a radio recording. I was really smitten, and from that moment on, I was a Bruckner fan". 03:33- 03:44 "Maybe it's a bit cheap, but I compare this symphony to Chartres Cathedral, thát feeling" 03:51- 03:56 "[This music] belongs in a cathedral, a vast space" 04:14-04:41 "To me, it's often music from above the tree line. Often, it's these grand blocks....mountains....If I have to compare it to something...for me it is rooted in a mountain scenery". 04:46-05:33 "He was [incomprehensible, MK]. He has always lived in that world. Bruckner was a very primitive figure. I believe he never even left Austria. He was a school teacher in a two-mill town and later ended up in Vienna, where he felt completely estranged and where he received some vehement criticism. His Eight Symphony however was a great success. That was his pride, that piece was his legacy". 05:50- 06:25 INTERVIEWER: "One could say that Bruckner's Eighth is one long prayer" HAITINK: "Yeah...but I am not really...." INTERVIEWER: "Bruckner is" HAITINK: "That is a dangerous subject that I prefer not to touch. But..." INTERVIEWER: "For Bruckner..." HAITINK: "For Bruckner, yes. Especially the Adagio, the third movement, that in itself already spans 28 minutes...yes, indeed, one could say it is a long prayer" 06:28 "At the end, in the Finale, the hesitant opening returns, but now as a confirmation. It includes subjects from the Scherzo and the main subject of the Adagio. He welded all that together in an ingenious way. You can think of medieval paintings of praying people, with their hands like this. I could regard it like that".
wonderful orchestra, great conductor, magnificent piece of music. but why, o why always these terrible fools in the audience who start applauding and yelling before the last notes have faded away?
When Mahler's 9th symphony came last note, Bernstein's hands were held up, and then he slowly move down both hands. When came down the lowest part, he fade his power away. Conductor must lead the audiences.
Nice if they would. If it is the last chord of a complete Tristan, usually people are respectful for some length. If something ends triumphantly, Beethoven 9---actually most Beethoven symphonies, all the Bruckner symphonies, and things like that, the audience will jump in, shouting and clapping. Really annoying. Opera audiences are the worst for applauding long before the final chords have ended. I had the pleasure of hearing him conduct this orchestra in the Mahler 6th, in 1996 at Carnegie Hall. Only piece on the program. Audience was so emotionally spent, that they waited to applaud!@@joopvandenbrink3202
Bruckner is nooit buiten Oostenrijk geweest: huh??? Hij speelde orgel in o.a. Londen, Rotterdam, Parijs, Nancy. En hij reisde naar Leipzig af voor de wereldpremiere van zijn eigen 7de symfonie. Dat was dus meer 'buitenland' in zijn leven dan bijvoorbeeld bij Beethoven het geval was, die -nog inwoner van Bonn zijnde (dus voor zijn emigratie naar de Oostenrijkse hoofdstad Wenen) maar een keer in het buitenland heeft verkeerd: in nota bene het toenmalige Nederland waarbij hij in Rotterdam en Den Haag (voor erfstadhouder Willem V en zijn hof) heeft geconcerteerd.
00:10 - 00:18 (the rehearsal bit) "Don't force the upbeat. There should be a big (grand) sound, don't force it. Four bars before [rehearsal figure] A" 00:18-00:25 (the interview) "I find it extremely important to have a sort of musical-spiritual communication with the orchestra." 00:40-00:54 "You shouldn't suffocate a musician. That was one of Van Beijnum's [Haitink's predecessor as chief conductor] standard expressions: "you can do anything with an orchestra musician, but don't step on his heart". 01:08-01:20 "I have the reputation of not saying too much [in rehearsal]. And that actually pleases me. It should happen through your charisma, your hands, your craftsmanship" 01:41- 02:03 "Very often, there are excellent musicians, who are better than me. But they lack the talent that I have, and I am being immodest now, to show with your hands, with your hands and feet as it were, without verbal communication, what I want". [Then some babbling by the tv presenter telling us that because of Haitink's 80th birthday, for a week, every evening a concert shall be broadcast, yada yada yada] 02:38- 03:05 "when you start with that mysterious, extremely soft murmur, that we call a tremolo, in the string section, followed by the opening bars of the theme in the low strings, it is as if someone tries to say something that he cannot openly express . And then it is followed by this long ascent, which takes 80 minutes (chuckles)." 03:10- 03:29 "I remember that before the war, in 1938, I was nine years old then, I heard a Bruckner 8, under Van Beijnum, which was a radio recording. I was really smitten, and from that moment on, I was a Bruckner fan". 03:33- 03:44 "Maybe it's a bit cheap, but I compare this symphony to Chartres Cathedral, thát feeling" 03:51- 03:56 "[This music] belongs in a cathedral, a vast space" 04:14-04:41 "To me, it's often music from above the tree line. Often, it's these grand blocks....mountains....If I have to compare it to something...for me it is rooted in a mountain scenery". 04:46-05:33 "He was [incomprehensible, MK]. He has always lived in that world. Bruckner was a very primitive figure. I believe he never even left Austria. He was a school teacher in a two-mill town and later ended up in Vienna, where he felt completely estranged and where he received some vehement criticism. His Eight Symphony however was a great success. That was his pride, that piece was his legacy". 05:50- 06:25 INTERVIEWER: "One could say that Bruckner's Eighth is one long prayer" HAITINK: "Yeah...but I am not really...." INTERVIEWER: "Bruckner is" HAITINK: "That is a dangerous subject that I prefer not to touch. But..." INTERVIEWER: "For Bruckner..." HAITINK: "For Bruckner, yes. Especially the Adagio, the third movement, that in itself already spans 28 minutes...yes, indeed, one could say it is a long prayer" 06:28 "At the end, in the Finale, the hesitant opening returns, but now as a confirmation. It includes subjects from the Scherzo and the main subject of the Adagio. He welded all that together in an ingenious way. You can think of medieval paintings of praying people, with their hands like this. I could regard it like that".
A symphony that should not be rushed, but polished and majestic.
Haitink gets this.
maybe he watched celibidache😂
Haitink is our greatest living conductor. Period. We're lucky to still have him conducting, as he approaches age 89.
Baloney (or bologna, or whatever). there is no "greatest living conductor". Period.
baloney = bullshit
Bruckner, like all great composers,
is usually easy to conduct
the obvious tempo leaves the conductor free to play
(with his orchestra)
with tonality & other stuff
like it or not
but I like Bruckner whoever is conducting
and his Fifth I have heard for only half
of my 80 years
@@Jivanmuktishu I pity you.
@@Jivanmuktishu How do you get through life being so clueless?
For the non-Dutch speakers, here is a translation of the spoken parts of the intro:
00:10 - 00:18 (the rehearsal bit)
"Don't force the upbeat. There should be a big (grand) sound, don't force it. Four bars before [rehearsal figure] A"
00:18-00:25 (the interview)
"I find it extremely important to have a sort of musical-spiritual communication with the orchestra."
00:40-00:54 "You shouldn't suffocate a musician. That was one of Van Beijnum's [Haitink's predecessor as chief conductor] standard expressions: "you can do anything with an orchestra musician, but don't step on his heart".
01:08-01:20 "I have the reputation of not saying too much [in rehearsal]. And that actually pleases me. It should happen through your charisma, your hands, your craftsmanship"
01:41- 02:03 "Very often, there are excellent musicians, who are better than me. But they lack the talent that I have, and I am being immodest now, to show with your hands, with your hands and feet as it were, without verbal communication, what I want".
[Then some babbling by the tv presenter telling us that because of Haitink's 80th birthday, for a week, every evening a concert shall be broadcast, yada yada yada]
02:38- 03:05 "when you start with that mysterious, extremely soft murmur, that we call a tremolo, in the string section, followed by the opening bars of the theme in the low strings, it is as if someone tries to say something that he cannot openly express . And then it is followed by this long ascent, which takes 80 minutes (chuckles)."
03:10- 03:29 "I remember that before the war, in 1938, I was nine years old then, I heard a Bruckner 8, under Van Beijnum, which was a radio recording. I was really smitten, and from that moment on, I was a Bruckner fan".
03:33- 03:44 "Maybe it's a bit cheap, but I compare this symphony to Chartres Cathedral, thát feeling"
03:51- 03:56 "[This music] belongs in a cathedral, a vast space"
04:14-04:41 "To me, it's often music from above the tree line. Often, it's these grand blocks....mountains....If I have to compare it to something...for me it is rooted in a mountain scenery".
04:46-05:33 "He was [incomprehensible, MK]. He has always lived in that world. Bruckner was a very primitive figure. I believe he never even left Austria. He was a school teacher in a two-mill town and later ended up in Vienna, where he felt completely estranged and where he received some vehement criticism. His Eight Symphony however was a great success. That was his pride, that piece was his legacy".
05:50- 06:25
INTERVIEWER: "One could say that Bruckner's Eighth is one long prayer"
HAITINK: "Yeah...but I am not really...."
INTERVIEWER: "Bruckner is"
HAITINK: "That is a dangerous subject that I prefer not to touch. But..."
INTERVIEWER: "For Bruckner..."
HAITINK: "For Bruckner, yes. Especially the Adagio, the third movement, that in itself already spans 28 minutes...yes, indeed, one could say it is a long prayer"
06:28 "At the end, in the Finale, the hesitant opening returns, but now as a confirmation. It includes subjects from the Scherzo and the main subject of the Adagio. He welded all that together in an ingenious way. You can think of medieval paintings of praying people, with their hands like this. I could regard it like that".
Thank you!!
04:46 "He was Austrian"
@@dadshomeagain8996 Yeah, sounds like it, seems a bit odd that half of the word 'Oostenrijker' is missing.
Thank you so much
Pour moi sans aucun doute la meilleure symphonie de Bruckner. Le jeu des harpes et le 3éme mouvement vous emportent jusqu'à l'extase. Merveilleuse composition et interprétation par un orchestre et un chef, fantastiques.
Absolutely fantastic performance - Haitink always had a wonderful sense of timing and pacing in whatever he conducted
Haitink, master of nuances and colours ! Fabulous !
The great Haitink at the top
He makes the symphonies
flow beautifully. never to
heavy ❤
La más grande odisea bruckneriana con uno de los últimos directores especialistas en Bruckner, el gran Haitink!
June 2019, Bernard Haitink(90) confirms he will stop conducting at september. Thank you maestro. It was such a pleasure to listen to your music
Wow. Then I count myself lucky to have seen him in Paris for his 90th birthday tour.
Greatly missed.
It's amazing how much the music style changed in just 100 years, from Mozart to Bruckner
Wunderbares Koninklijk Concertgebouworkest!
Großartiger Bernard Haitink!
A wonderful performance! I thoroughly it
I. 07:49 Allegro moderato (minor)
II. 24:37 Scherzo: Allegro moderato - Trio Langsam (C minor -->C major, Trio in A flat major)
III. 40:59 Adagio: Feierlich langsam, doch night scleppend (D flat major)
IV. 1:08:03 Finale: Feierlich, nicht schnell (C minor --> C major)
Thank you!
This was a lovely performance of Bruckner 8th, indeed. However, I still go back to the 1958 recording of the same work by Herbert von Karajan and the Berliner Philhamoniker - it was such a magisterial performance!
Hmmm Interesting. Matter of taste of course. I would put Furtwangler, Klemperer and Celibidache with Haitink as the best interpreters. For a work Ad majorem Dei gloriam, DGG and Karajan I find too antiseptically perfect, over-rehearsed.
Rip Haitink!
Zijn muziek blijft🙏
16:43 these horns where to staccato and fast tho.....
Great ！
Incomparable and exquisite
Phantastisch. Kommt ran an Bruckner- Sternstunden der Münchner mit Celi. Sagenhaft. Oh! Dankeee!
Espetacular!!!! BRAVO!!!
At 1:30:00 we see confident playing from the excellent timpanist ! BRAVO
The one and only Marinus Komst!!
I am a big admirer of BH, but I don't speak Dutch. Subtitles, anyone? I would love to hear commentary by the likes of this great maestro about music by 1 of my favorite composers, certainly one of the most intriguing. That's why I wish I could soak up his commentary.
I certainly had no trouble "understanding" what he & this fine group of musicians had to say when he led the performance. His reading with the CO back in the 1970s which Virginia Tech's WUVT-FM (I was a classical announcer there) received in narrated live concert format for airplay in a Radio Nederland box, will always be my favorite. Certainly it would appear the CO has virtually been his own for many of his professional years. May God bless him as he turns 88 very soon. What a pleasure to find this gem of a concert!
His English is perfectly fine when he speaks it, better than most, in fact. He just didn't have occasion to use it in the prelude interviews. But I speak enough German (a companion language) to understand much of what he was saying.
@@replyhere590 I can't put any subtitles, since this is not my channel, but here it goes:
00:10 - 00:18 (the rehearsal bit)
"Don't force the upbeat. There should be a big (grand) sound, don't force it. Four bars before [rehearsal figure] A"
00:18-00:25 (the interview)
"I find it extremely important to have a sort of musical-spiritual communication with the orchestra."
00:40-00:54 "You shouldn't suffocate a musician. That was one of Van Beijnum's [Haitink's predecessor as chief conductor] standard expressions: "you can do anything with an orchestra musician, but don't step on his heart".
01:08-01:20 "I have the reputation of not saying too much [in rehearsal]. And that actually pleases me. It should happen through your charisma, your hands, your craftsmanship"
01:41- 02:03 "Very often, there are excellent musicians, who are better than me. But they lack the talent that I have, and I am being immodest now, to show with your hands, with your hands and feet as it were, without verbal communication, what I want".
[Then some babbling by the tv presenter telling us that because of Haitink's 80th birthday, for a week, every evening a concert shall be broadcast, yada yada yada]
02:38- 03:05 "when you start with that mysterious, extremely soft murmur, that we call a tremolo, in the string section, followed by the opening bars of the theme in the low strings, it is as if someone tries to say something that he cannot openly express . And then it is followed by this long ascent, which takes 80 minutes (chuckles)."
03:10- 03:29 "I remember that before the war, in 1938, I was nine years old then, I heard a Bruckner 8, under Van Beijnum, which was a radio recording. I was really smitten, and from that moment on, I was a Bruckner fan".
03:33- 03:44 "Maybe it's a bit cheap, but I compare this symphony to Chartres Cathedral, thát feeling"
03:51- 03:56 "[This music] belongs in a cathedral, a vast space"
04:14-04:41 "To me, it's often music from above the tree line. Often, it's these grand blocks....mountains....If I have to compare it to something...for me it is rooted in a mountain scenery".
04:46-05:33 "He was [incomprehensible, MK]. He has always lived in that world. Bruckner was a very primitive figure. I believe he never even left Austria. He was a school teacher in a two-mill town and later ended up in Vienna, where he felt completely estranged and where he received some vehement criticism. His Eight Symphony however was a great success. That was his pride, that piece was his legacy".
05:50- 06:25
INTERVIEWER: "One could say that Bruckner's Eighth is one long prayer"
HAITINK: "Yeah...but I am not really...."
INTERVIEWER: "Bruckner is"
HAITINK: "That is a dangerous subject that I prefer not to touch. But..."
INTERVIEWER: "For Bruckner..."
HAITINK: "For Bruckner, yes. Especially the Adagio, the third movement, that in itself already spans 28 minutes...yes, indeed, one could say it is a long prayer"
06:28 "At the end, in the Finale, the hesitant opening returns, but now as a confirmation. It includes subjects from the Scherzo and the main subject of the Adagio. He welded all that together in an ingenious way. You can think of medieval paintings of praying people, with their hands like this. I could regard it like that".
1:29:06 Amazing!!!! BRAVO!!!!
❤❤❤❤❤❤🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆
Haitinks 1st time version 1890 after conducting Haas all his life. The RCO-Live recording from 2005 is still Haas.
He was only 78 in 2007!
1:31:54 He didn´t like the much too early Bravo´s :-)
1 - 7:48
2 - 24:35
3 - 41:00
4 - 1:08:00
wonderful orchestra, great conductor, magnificent piece of music. but why, o why always these terrible fools in the audience who start applauding and yelling before the last notes have faded away?
I agree. It should be wonderfull if the audience wait at least 10 seconds after the last cord of the last part. . . . .
Das stimmt! Ein bisschen Stille danach wäre schön. Aber die Menschen empfinden unterschiedlich.
Hier stehen sie spontan auf und applaudieren!
When Mahler's 9th symphony came last note, Bernstein's hands were held up, and then he slowly move down both hands. When came down the lowest part, he fade his power away. Conductor must lead the audiences.
That's the drama of live performance. They did wait until the reverberation of the last note had faded to silence.
Nice if they would. If it is the last chord of a complete Tristan, usually people are respectful for some length. If something ends triumphantly, Beethoven 9---actually most Beethoven symphonies, all the Bruckner symphonies, and things like that, the audience will jump in, shouting and clapping. Really annoying. Opera audiences are the worst for applauding long before the final chords have ended.
I had the pleasure of hearing him conduct this orchestra in the Mahler 6th, in 1996 at Carnegie Hall. Only piece on the program. Audience was so emotionally spent, that they waited to applaud!@@joopvandenbrink3202
1:23:09 📯📯📯📯📯📯📯📯🎶✨
21:42
Bruckner is nooit buiten Oostenrijk geweest: huh??? Hij speelde orgel in o.a. Londen, Rotterdam, Parijs, Nancy. En hij reisde naar Leipzig af voor de wereldpremiere van zijn eigen 7de symfonie. Dat was dus meer 'buitenland' in zijn leven dan bijvoorbeeld bij Beethoven het geval was, die -nog inwoner van Bonn zijnde (dus voor zijn emigratie naar de Oostenrijkse hoofdstad Wenen) maar een keer in het buitenland heeft verkeerd: in nota bene het toenmalige Nederland waarbij hij in Rotterdam en Den Haag (voor erfstadhouder Willem V en zijn hof) heeft geconcerteerd.
needs subtitles. but the music is there.
00:10 - 00:18 (the rehearsal bit)
"Don't force the upbeat. There should be a big (grand) sound, don't force it. Four bars before [rehearsal figure] A"
00:18-00:25 (the interview)
"I find it extremely important to have a sort of musical-spiritual communication with the orchestra."
00:40-00:54 "You shouldn't suffocate a musician. That was one of Van Beijnum's [Haitink's predecessor as chief conductor] standard expressions: "you can do anything with an orchestra musician, but don't step on his heart".
01:08-01:20 "I have the reputation of not saying too much [in rehearsal]. And that actually pleases me. It should happen through your charisma, your hands, your craftsmanship"
01:41- 02:03 "Very often, there are excellent musicians, who are better than me. But they lack the talent that I have, and I am being immodest now, to show with your hands, with your hands and feet as it were, without verbal communication, what I want".
[Then some babbling by the tv presenter telling us that because of Haitink's 80th birthday, for a week, every evening a concert shall be broadcast, yada yada yada]
02:38- 03:05 "when you start with that mysterious, extremely soft murmur, that we call a tremolo, in the string section, followed by the opening bars of the theme in the low strings, it is as if someone tries to say something that he cannot openly express . And then it is followed by this long ascent, which takes 80 minutes (chuckles)."
03:10- 03:29 "I remember that before the war, in 1938, I was nine years old then, I heard a Bruckner 8, under Van Beijnum, which was a radio recording. I was really smitten, and from that moment on, I was a Bruckner fan".
03:33- 03:44 "Maybe it's a bit cheap, but I compare this symphony to Chartres Cathedral, thát feeling"
03:51- 03:56 "[This music] belongs in a cathedral, a vast space"
04:14-04:41 "To me, it's often music from above the tree line. Often, it's these grand blocks....mountains....If I have to compare it to something...for me it is rooted in a mountain scenery".
04:46-05:33 "He was [incomprehensible, MK]. He has always lived in that world. Bruckner was a very primitive figure. I believe he never even left Austria. He was a school teacher in a two-mill town and later ended up in Vienna, where he felt completely estranged and where he received some vehement criticism. His Eight Symphony however was a great success. That was his pride, that piece was his legacy".
05:50- 06:25
INTERVIEWER: "One could say that Bruckner's Eighth is one long prayer"
HAITINK: "Yeah...but I am not really...."
INTERVIEWER: "Bruckner is"
HAITINK: "That is a dangerous subject that I prefer not to touch. But..."
INTERVIEWER: "For Bruckner..."
HAITINK: "For Bruckner, yes. Especially the Adagio, the third movement, that in itself already spans 28 minutes...yes, indeed, one could say it is a long prayer"
06:28 "At the end, in the Finale, the hesitant opening returns, but now as a confirmation. It includes subjects from the Scherzo and the main subject of the Adagio. He welded all that together in an ingenious way. You can think of medieval paintings of praying people, with their hands like this. I could regard it like that".
Sounds more like Mahler than bruckner…anyway he was a good conductor