Portrait Vol.2

Conductor Bernard Haitink would have turned 95 in March 2024. BR-KLASSIK dedicates a second portrait edition to the eminent conductor, who passed away in October 2021, with a total of nine CDs featuring excellent live recordings that document the Dutch conductor's years of intensive collaboration with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Choir. Since Haitink first conducted a subscription concert in 1958, he stood at the helm of the BRSO for more than six decades, sometimes in the Herkulessaal of the Residenz, sometimes in the Philharmonie im Gasteig. The orchestra musicians and singers enjoyed working with him just as much as BR's sound technicians did. As a follow-up to the Portrait Box released in February 2019, this edition offers an excellent overview of the joint interpretations of masterworks from the Viennese classical period, but also from German-Austrian late Romanticism and the 20th century: outstanding compositions by Ludwig van Beethoven, Anton Bruckner, Antonín Dvorák, Gustav Mahler and Dmitri Sjostakovitsj. Numerous renowned vocal soloists, including Sally Matthews, Gerhild Romberger, Gerald Finley and Mark Padmore (in Beethoven's Symphony No. 9) or Krassimira Stoyanova, Yvonne Naef, Christoph Strehl and Günther Groissbock (in Bruckner's "Te Deum") perform under Haitink's direction, together with the choir and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. This box is a must for anyone who wants to get an impression of conductor Bernard Haitink's work and an overview of his years-long collaboration with the orchestras of the Bayerischer Rundfunk.