By Richard Dyer

When Bernard Haitink conducted his first concert with Amsterdam's great Concertgebouw Orchestra, the music director, Eduard van Beinum, asked for a report from a trusted ally among the players.

"The boy doesn't know a thing," the musician reported. "But he's a conductor."

That was 50 years ago, in 1956, when Haitink was only 27. He had stepped in to replace the ailing Carlo Maria Giulini in Cherubini's Requiem, which was performed in memory of those who died in the uprising in Hungary that year. On his way to the podium, Haitink overheard a woman mutter, "My goodness, what a schoolboy!"

It could be argued that it was that very performance that launched Haitink's major career. During every season since then, Haitink has stood among the world's leading conductors, a musician of and for every year. Composer/conductor Gunther Schuller, not an easy man to please, has written of Haitink, "He is the all-round versatile ideal. I can hear an orchestra on the radio and know it is Haitink conducting. Of course, when I say I recognize Haitink, what I am saying is that I recognize the full, the true Brahms or Debussy or Willem Pijper."

Over the years, Haitink has held long tenures in prestigious posts at the Concertgebouw (1964-88), in his native Holland, the London Philharmonic (1967-79), the Glyndebourne Festival (1978-88), and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (1988-2002). He also has been a frequent guest at the Berlin Philharmonic and Vienna Philharmonic.

He has become a major interpreter of the works of Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner, Mahler, and Shostakovich. For a musician sometimes described as sobersided, he catches the delirium as well as the discipline of French music. No one on the podium today has a surer sense of rhythm or a stronger insight into musical character. ("Thank goodness," remarked the legendary Pierre Monteux, after seeing the very young Haitink in action, "there's one conductor who can at least beat.") What can appear to the public as a businesslike demeanor comes across to orchestras as an unwavering concentration of purpose. An entirely serious musician, he doesn’t take himself too seriously, once asking a favorite soloist as they walked offstage, "Was I too Dutch tonight?"

Throughout his career he also has been a regular visitor to musical America, sometimes leading foreign orchestras on tour, sometimes guest-conducting American orchestras. In 1995, after a long process of persuasion, he became principal guest conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, a position he held until 2004, when at the invitation of the new music director, James Levine, he accepted the title of conductor emeritus. (Haitink is wary of titles and of official responsibilities, asking, "What's in a title? That's not important. If the title doesn't fit anymore, they can just say that Bernard Haitink is coming.")

Earlier this year, Haitink agreed to take on a second titled position in this country, at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, which he will serve for three years as principal conductor during the search for a new music director.

Last summer Haitink sat down for an extended interview in the sunroom of an isolated house he was renting not far from Tanglewood; his elegant British wife, Patricia, excitedly reported having seen a bear down the driveway. At 77 the conductor is alert, energetic, vital, and focused on essentials; fully aware of his own worth, he also has an amusing selfdeprecating streak.

The offer from Chicago and his own decision to accept it seems to have caught Haitink by surprise. "I have conducted the Chicago Symphony a few times in the past, but until I went there earlier this year, I hadn't been there for nine years," he said. "I was invited to, but I am loyal to Boston and just didn't accept. In February, however, I was there for two weeks, and I think I can say for all parties it was a very positive experience. Then the orchestra came forward with this offer. Without the sheer joy of having worked with them, I wouldn't have thought about it at all."

Haitink told Chicago he would accept only musical responsibilities. "They will have to be looking for a real music director. I can't do that, first of all because of my age; I am far too old to take on something like that. It would be ridiculous. Also, I have never felt right about being a music director in the U.S. My pleasure comes in the music, not in all the other things an American music director has to do. I never had the ambition for that."

Two other factors made the Chicago offer attractive. "Pierre Boulez agreed to handle the auditions. And then the situation was unusual and attractive. A guest conductor is always restricted in repertoire because the music director always has the first choice. But in this case I will have freedom to conduct what I want to, the pleasant experience of leading works I would like to do once more."

Haitink made his American debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1958, replacing the ailing van Beinum in an all-Brahms program that included the Violin Concerto with Yehudi Menuhin. "In retrospect," Haitink says, "this was far too early. I was in my twenties then still. Later, in the early 1960s, I did a long six-week tour to the States with the
Concertgebouw, dividing the programs with Eugen Jochum. I also conducted the Minnesota Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony, but I would not say that those concerts were great occasions for the orchestras."

In the 1970s Haitink began to conduct the Boston Symphony Orchestra and became the favorite guest conductor long before he was appointed the principal guest conductor. In fact, 10 years before Haitink was convinced to take the post, 80 members of the orchestra signed a petition urging that he be asked to do so.

BSO concertmaster Malcolm Lowe speaks of the trust the orchestra has in Haitink, and of the trust the conductor has in the orchestra. "Within the parameters he sets," Lowe observes, "he lets us play, and he is interested in what we have to contribute. I remember when he came back to us after a long absence to conduct the Mahler Seventh. He rehearsed it quite hard, but we hadn't done it recently and we were not consistently accomplishing what we might have. But at the end of the dress rehearsal he took a moment to speak to us and told us how much he had enjoyed working together with us, and told us that he was going to be right there with and for us. That set the tone for all the years that have followed. He is both a leader and a colleague. He always has a definite work ethic, and he came to the world premiere of John Harbison's Requiem as thoroughly prepared as he would to anything else, and with his own insights. His gestures collect the mind, body, and spirit of everyone who is playing for him. It all looks very simple, but it is tapping into regions that are not simple at all."

Haitink says, "I always like to come back to places where I know people. I do not enjoy traveling around so much, but Boston became a fixed stop, and it still is. I first heard the orchestra under Pierre Monteux in the mid-1950s--they played Brahms's Second Symphony and Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé. Incredible. The sound it produces is a function of working so often in Symphony Hall. I would characterize it as a European sound, although that is a stupid way to talk. The great thing about the Boston, Cleveland, and Chicago orchestras is that you can tell them apart."

Haitink dismisses discussion of the differences between American and European orchestras as "a lot of hot air." "There are some extremely good orchestras in Europe and in America, but only the best of them have a highly individual character. The danger, especially in Europe, is of developing a 'unisex' sound. It is not uncommon for an orchestra to have musicians from 25 different nationalities. What I admire in America is the professionalism, how well-prepared everyone is, and how good the attitude is."

Haitink began his career as an orchestral violinist; that experience probably taught him the kinds of information a player needs to receive from a conductor--and what is unhelpful. His mentors included the German conductor Ferdinand Leitner and his countryman, van Beinum. His ascent was rapid, and about the only surprise along the way was a major shift into opera beginning in 1972. He had led three operatic productions in The Netherlands that he prefers to forget, but in England, first at Glyndebourne, and later at Covent Garden, he developed his interest in opera, concentrating on the major works of Mozart, Strauss, Verdi, and Wagner, with occasional excursions into other repertory. He hasn't conducted Puccini, although he once remarked that certain of his colleagues ought to conduct Tosca at least once a year to get rid of their aggressive tendencies.

His American career in the opera house consists of six performances of Beethoven's Fidelio at the Met in 1982. "I'm not sure that was so great," he says, "but at least it was a long time ago." The orchestra's response was unequivocal; it remained in the pit at the end to cheer Haitink along with the audience.

Haitink believes it is important for a conductor to lead both symphonic and operatic works. "Opera makes you a more flexible conductor of the orchestral repertoire. You conduct Mozart's symphonies and piano concertos differently after you have conducted the operas, and you conduct Bruckner and Mahler differently after you have conducted Wagner."

With regard to Mahler, Haitink declares himself a "culprit" in developing the composer's current popularity. "While it is good that we now have ensembles that concentrate on early music, Baroque music, and music in the classical style, this has also developed a ghetto mentality that is a very worrisome state of affairs. To play only Strauss and Mahler will be the death of the symphony orchestra. An orchestra must know the whole picture of music . . . everything in the repertoire comes from Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert."

A few years ago Haitink announced he would no longer conduct opera. "That's still true," he says with a laugh, "if you don't count the productions of Parsifal I have agreed to conduct in Zurich and in London and also a Pelléas et Mélisande."

The whole trajectory of Haitink's career can be traced through hundreds of recordings. The earliest recording in his official discography is a live performance of Mendelssohn's Hebrides Overture from 1956 and issued on CD in 1997. His first studio recording was Dvorvák’s Seventh Symphony, recorded by Philips in 1959, along with a group of Slavonic Dances.

Curiously his recording career is coming full circle, with a set of the complete Beethoven symphonies, recorded live with the London Symphony Orchestra in 2005 and 2006 for the orchestra's own LSO LIVE label. This is his third Beethoven cycle: The earlier ones, on Philips, date from the mid-1970s (London Philharmonic) and the mid-1980s (Concertgebouw).

"Sometimes I look back and I ask myself, 'Did I do all of this?' I know I didn't do all of it perfectly, but at least some of it was good. I wanted to do all the Beethoven symphonies again because my views of the music have changed dramatically and so has my attitude about live recording. I listen to these live recordings and I feel a sort of excitement that is difficult to get in the studio, where the atmosphere is sometimes too relaxed and where you can mess around with the sound. Also, I believe a recording is a document of what you are doing right now. I agree with James Levine, who calls a recording a snapshot of how you were feeling about the music that day. It's a moment in time, a frozen moment.

"I have changed my ideas about Beethoven's tempi and about balance, in part because I have been listening to the new fashion of historically informed performance. I do listen to this work critically--some of it I like and some of it I hate. I heard one recording of the Fifth Symphony, I will not tell you which, but the man who did this should be in prison.But it gave me enormous pleasure to examine this music again away from all the heavy tempi, and thinking also about the Beethoven string quartets and piano sonatas. This music is always thrusting forward."

Haitink says he never listens to his old recordings and once confessed, "I do not want to have a Mahler symphony in my living room." But he says he enjoys listening to his new Beethoven recordings for a rather unusual reason. "I don't recognize myself--and I like this. It is very important to keep a critical ear towards myself as well as towards others."

At Tanglewood last summer Haitink conducted the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra as well as the Boston Symphony and also worked extensively with the class of conducting fellows.

"He is so calm," said TMC violinist Noah Geller, nothing strained, stressed, or forced. He exudes kindness and warmth as he invites you to make music with him." Percussionist Aziz Barnard Luce added, "He is more like a part of the orchestra--not an 'us' and a 'him.' "

The conducting fellows were even more enthusiastic. Tomasz Golka said, "We thought he was going to tell us what to do; we wanted him to. But instead he would ask, 'What do you plan on doing?' " Nicolas Fink added, "But he never said anything was great or wonderful if it wasn't; he was very specific in his criticism." Kazem Abdullah said, "He kept focusing on how to make the most of the time we had with the orchestra, and didn't use the same approach with everyone; he dealt with each of us as a person." "He treated us as colleagues, not as students," added Eva Ollikainen. "He doesn't talk so much; he does everything with his hands."

Haitink is not always pleased with what he sees and hears in young conductors, but he was very impressed with the Tanglewood crowd.

"Sometimes I can see how seriously young conductors have studied the DVDs of Karajan or Bernstein or Carlos Kleiber. But my impression is that they are only conducting themselves; there is no means of communication with the musicians who are playing. That is the danger of studying conductors in the media; it's like working in front of a mirror. No great conductor is in any way like any other great conductor. And you do not arrive at a convincing interpretation by listening to a Brahms Symphony conducted by Klemperer and Karajan and a bunch of other people and then picking all the parts you like and trying to reproduce them. I tell young conductors not to think of putting themselves into the limelight and losing the musical intention. You must make every gesture in response to a musical necessity."

Haitink says he was wary of van Beinum. "I was very shy, and he was not a healthy man. But I remember one thing he said to me: 'When you start a rehearsal, do you know how to spend your time?' My reaction to that was that it was not an artistic thing to say, but now . . . well, I have seen young conductors rehearse only the beginning and never get through to the end. In the meantime they have bored the orchestra to death. The way to keep the attention of the musicians is not to stop all the time to tell them things they know already. Rehearsal is the Achilles heel of young conductors, and maybe of a few established conductors too!"

Finally, as Haitink advises young conductors, he seems to be describing himself, now that half a century has passed and he knows a thing or two. "Just do it. There is just one golden rule: to have confidence in the musicians, who are always better than you think. Don't ever underestimate the musicians--and don't ever overrate yourself."

Richard Dyer has just retired from the Boston Globe after 33
years of writing about music there.