Mr. Haitink, from his youth “lazy days.”
“I wasn’t stupid,” he explained, “but I wasn’t there. Half the time we were taught under our desk by airstrikes. But even when things got back to normal I wasn’t interested. Maybe that’s why now, when I’m 70, people ask me why I work so hard.”
He started playing the violin at the age of 9 and later studied at the Amsterdam Conservatory. He joined the Dutch Radio Philharmonic Orchestra’s second violin section, but was insecure about his abilities as a violinist. After taking a conducting course, he was appointed as the conductor of the orchestra in 1955 at the age of 26.
Mr. Haitink, who once said this “Every conductor, including me, has an expiration date” He officially retired in his 90th year, after an acclaimed farewell tour of European summer festivals. Reviewing the concert she gave with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall in London on that tour, critic Erica Jeal wrote that “the last word should be from Bruckner”.
“Haitink, as always, emphasized beauty over structure,” he wrote, “but did not let the music’s sense of form loosen for a moment.”
His extensive recordings include complete symphonies by Bruckner, Mahler, Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn and Schumann for the Philips label; full symphonies by Elgar and Vaughan Williams for EMI; Shostakovich’s complete symphonies for Decca; All Debussy orchestral works for Philips; and Beethoven and Brahms symphony loops for the London Symphony Orchestra’s LSO Live label.
Mr. Haitink has been married four times and has several children and grandchildren. Full information about the survivors was not immediately available.
in 2011, In another interview with The GuardianMr. Haitink meditated on the strange life of a conductor. “I have been doing this for 50 years,” he said. “And you know, it’s a profession and not a profession. Sometimes very vague. What makes a good conductor? What is this charisma thing? After all these years, I still wonder.”