Bernard Haitink, longtime chief conductor of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, has died at 92.
Haitink led the Amsterdam orchestra from 1963 until 1988, and thereafter was awarded a laureate post with the ensemble.
He also held artistic leadership posts with the London Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Staatskapelle Dresden, Britain’s Glyndebourne Festival and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in London. He also was a regular guest conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic and other major orchestras in Europe and the US.
He led his final concert two years ago with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, with which he had made his conducting debut in 1954. (A recording of that final performance, of Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony, has just been issued on the Challenge Classics label.)
Haitink was a prolific recording artist, especially celebrated for his recordings of the symphonies of Mahler, Bruckner, Beethoven and Shostakovich.
An obituary by The New York Times’ Vivien Schweitzer:
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