Strauss: Eine Alpensinfonie Bernard Haitink

• Richard Strauss (1864 - 1949): Eine Alpensinfonie:
• 1 I. Nacht - Sonnenaufgang 05:03
• 2 II. Der Anstieg - Eintritt in den Wald 07:46
• 3 III. Wanderung neben dem Bache - Am Wasserfall - Erscheinung - Auf blumigen Wiesen 02:38
• 4 IV. Auf der Alm - Durch Dickicht und Gestrüpp auf Irrwegen 03:42
• 5 V. Auf dem Gletscher - Gefahrvolle Augenblicke 02:42
• 6 VI. Auf dem Gipfel 04:51
• 7 VII. Vision - Nebel steigen auf - Die Sonne verdüstert sich allmählich - Elegie 06:15
• 8 VIII. Stille vor den Sturm - Gewitter und Sturm, Abstieg - Sonnenuntergang 09:06
• 9 IX. Ausklang 05:50
• 10 X. Nacht 02:22
• Total Runtime 50:15

Info for Strauss: Eine Alpensinfonie

LSO Live is thrilled to welcome Bernard Haitink back for his first recording with the LSO since his internationally acclaimed Beethoven cycle in 2006. Eine Alpensinfonie was recorded in June 2008 during Haitink’s Strauss/Mozart series with the LSO. In his Alpine Symphony Strauss recounts an attempt to conquer the summit of an Alpine mountain. He infuses the score with numerous instrumental colours and rich combinations of sounds, evoking the images and events that take place on the trek. It was to be one of his final large-scale orchestral works and shows the last great German Romantic composer at the pinnacle of his art. Haitink has also recorded Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with the LSO and soloists Christianne Stotijn and Anthony Dean Griffey for release on LSO Live later in 2010. He will conduct the Royal Concergebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam during early-2010 followed in June 2010 by a complete Beethoven symphony cycle in concert with Chicago Symphony Orchestra. LSO Live’s other recent releases include Prokofiev’s complete score for the ballet Romeo & Juliette conducted by Valery Gergiev. In March the label releases Gergiev’s recording of Mahler’s Fourth Symphony.

“an outstanding performance of Richard Strauss’s Alpine Symphony. Rarely has the long haul to the summit seemed more purposeful. Haitink’s perfect control of the orchestral palette at sunrise and at dusk, as strands of colour rose out of and sank back into the dark monochrome contours, made this performance an incarnation of the music’s own metaphysical struggle and triumph” (The Times, UK)

“He avoided the fashionable temptation to treat the vast score as an exercise in postmodern irony and presented it straightforwardly as a piece of tremendous late Romanticism” (The Guardian, UK)

"There are so many good recordings of the Alpine Symphony on the market now, but this has moments that are as fine as any, and arguably the noblest overall shape of all." (BBC Music Magazine)

"no-one has quite Haitink's sense of the piece as a rational symphonic argument...The performance gathers strength and intensity as it proceeds...Admirers should not hesitate to acquire an archetypal example of Haitink's unobtrusive podium manner." (Gramophone)

London Symphony Orchestra
Bernard Haitink, conductor

Bernard Haitink
With an international career now spanning six decades, Amsterdam-born Bernard Haitink is one of the most renowned conductors of our time. First engaged by the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra in 1954, Bernard Haitink began his meteoric career in 1956 at the age of just 27, when he substituted for an ailing Carlo Maria Giulini and first conducted the orchestra with whom he would enjoy a long and highly successful collaboration: the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam. From 1961 to 1988 he was Music Director and Principal Conductor of the orchestra – a position he initially shared with Eugen Jochum. Other positions held by him included Music Director and Principal Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra (1967-1979), of the Glyndebourne Festival Opera (1978-1988), of London's Royal Opera House Covent Garden (1988-2002) and of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (2006- 2010). Bernard Haitink is “Conductor Laureate” of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, “Conductor Emeritus” of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and "Patron" of the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra. Since 1958 he has had a cordial working relationship with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks: the live recording of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony, published on the BR-KLASSIK label, was awarded the ECHO Klassik 2013 and the “Toblacher Komponierhäuschen” prize. Bernard Haitink has been a Knight of the British Empire since 1977; in 1991 he received the “Erasmus” award, the highest cultural award of the Netherlands; and in 2007 the magazine Musical America named him “Musician of the Year”. He is a Companion of Honour of the United Kingdom and a holder of the Order of the House of Orange-Nassau.

Booklet for Strauss: Eine Alpensinfonie