BBC Proms: Ax, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Haitink | reviews, news & interviews
BBC Proms: Ax, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Haitink
BBC Proms: Ax, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Haitink
Refined musicians who put beauty and fellowship before dangerousness
Saturday, 20 August 2011
Ax and Haitink: they have been collaborating on Brahms since 1997Ax © J Henry Fair
"O, reason not the need!” cries Shakespeare’s King Lear, insisting on certain unquestioned rights. The phrase came to me listening to Bernard Haitink conducting Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto and Fourth Symphony last night. The 82-year-old Haitink does not question the need for this music - and I’m not sure that’s entirely right. I want the imperative there, I want to feel the urge to be born in those musical paragraphs that Brahms wrote with such generous largesse. To reason the need gives the music its birth again.
"O, reason not the need!” cries Shakespeare’s King Lear, insisting on certain unquestioned rights. The phrase came to me listening to Bernard Haitink conducting Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto and Fourth Symphony last night. The 82-year-old Haitink does not question the need for this music - and I’m not sure that’s entirely right. I want the imperative there, I want to feel the urge to be born in those musical paragraphs that Brahms wrote with such generous largesse. To reason the need gives the music its birth again.
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