Bernard Haitink, R.I.P.

He was a Mahlerian and Brucknerian to be sure. One of my go-to conductors. We're fortunate that his recordings are of outstanding quality.
RIP

It is interesting to me that in the early vinyl days the Philips Haitink Concertgebouw recordings were often considered dull.  But as analog equipment became more sophisticated (somewhat after the analog golden age) they started sounding better and better.  So too when digital developed enough to do these recordings justice.  As the NY Times obit headlined, he was the, "Conductor Who Let Music Speak for Itself."  And so our appreciation of what he accomplished grew.  RIP.

As melm sez... Philips continues to be one of my favorite labels.

R.I.P.

The Phillips label of course has been subsumed into a larger label under the Decca banner. When Haitink and Phillips were in their heyday, with seemingly a new release every few weeks, I was a cash poor student and those lps were the most expensive.  I bought a few but it seemed a sacrilege to subject that pristine quiet vinyl to the torture of my cheap turn table. The ones I did purchase I would obsess over cleaning, rechecking the anti skate, trying different tracking weights, etc.  inevitably they would get scuffed up and it would always feel like a friend had died.  I therefore missed out on most of his recordings unless they showed up in the overflow bins of the stores, a rare circumstance.    With CDs being repackaged at bargain basement rates I have caught up with many recordings from those days and marvel anew at the partnership of Haitink and the Concertgebouw.  Such a range of Orchestral Color.