Richard Strauss
Eine Alpensinfonie, Op. 64
Bernard Haitink conducting the London Symphony Orchestra
Review By Max Westler
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  One has to feel sorry for Bernard Haitink. Even at the age of eighty, after a career spanning more than half a century, he's still getting reviews that seem to damn him with faint praise. Such reviews will invariably begin by praising his musical virtues — his fine ear for balances, his ability to tease detail out of the thickest orchestral tumult — but end by judging the performance in question not as exciting or dramatic as other versions of the same piece. I'm afraid I too have to plead guilty here. In a review of Haitink's Chicago Symphony recording of Ravel's Daphnis and Chloe, I talk about the magical, diaphanous sound Haitink achieves, but ultimately recommend James Levine's version with the Boston Symphony Orchestra because it's a more hot-blooded experience.

Not surprisingly, Haitink's new recording of Richard Strauss' EineAlpensinfonie with the London Symphony Orchestra has elicited exactly the same kind of reviews. In Fanfare, for example, the critic Arthur Lingren begins by contrasting Haitink's restraint and control to Leonard Bernstein's "heart-on-sleeve histrionics." Discussing the Alpensinfonie, he calls Haitink's performance "well-played and meticulously crafted," but ultimately finds the conductor "temperamentally ill at ease with Strauss' highly programmatic music."

I beg to differ. In fact, I find myself wondering exactly what recording Lingren and other critics listened to. The one I heard could well be Haitink's most visceral performance. From first note to last, Haitink projects an unflagging concentration and intensity that are totally unrestrained, uncharacteristically "heart-on-sleeve." It's certainly true that Haitink's technical virtues are on display here. This is probably the most transparent- sounding performance I've ever heard of this extravagant and sumptuous score: even when Strauss' huge orchestra is sounding triple forte, you can hear every nuance and detail from the winds and strings.

But what makes this performance so special is Haitink's passionate response to music he clearly loves and believes in. If his tempos are in general slower than we're used to, they are never slack. Haitink's long experience allows him to slowly build the tension in both the "Sunrise" and "Thunderstorm" episodes to overwhelming climaxes. If he seems less interested in the picturesque, purely programmatic aspects of the score, he more than compensates with a sense of structure that shapes this episodic music into a dramatically vibrant whole. In the end, Haitink doesn't give us the heightened film music we might want or expect, but something more dangerously elemental, darkly mysterious and mystical. He seems to be reminding us that the principal inspiration for this score was Nietzsche, which Strauss was attempting to compose a piece more like Also sprach Zarathustra than Til Eulenspiegal's Merry Pranks.

Recently the Gramophone named its selection of "the greatest orchestras in the world," and angered many of its cross Atlantic readers by ranking the London Symphony higher than any American orchestra. Though British chauvinism often explains a lot about that esteemed magazine's musical tastes, the playing here easily justifies their choice with its concentration, intensity, and effortless power. If you add to this, James Mallinson's typically well-balanced sound, you have a recording of the Alpensinfonie that can stand with any and is more individual and daring than most. Poor Bernard! He finally lets it all hang out, and no one notices.

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