she 's frustrated. ln the theatre, yo u have t o compromise. The question is just how much.'

Behind Haitink ·s courteo us, thorough. manner lies a wi ll of s teel , bu t it is a will and resolution that is at the se rvice of the music not of hi s own personal aggrandisement. Any player or singer w ill tell you of hi s thoroug hness in preparation ; hi s wholehea rted know ledge of th e work in h and no t o nl y gives his fellow -artists assurance but a lso the will ingness to cooperate full y in m a king music with. him.

Hi s bea t is to the point , workmanlike; hi s eyes , co ncent rated a nd beseeching, do the rest , as is the case with all the greates t conductors. Structure and tension mean far more to him than the in cidental thrill o f the moment, so that often the deepes t effects of his interpretations are not those made as one comes away from the opera house or the concert ha ll , but in the quiet of one 's home long afterwards. Although willing to attemp t a ny music he bel ie ves in , he is at his most co nvincing in the grandest work Fidelio , Zauberflot e, Don Giovanni (which was hi s Covent Garden debut in J 977), Lohengrin , of which he conducted the new Covent Garden production in 1978 (when shall we hear h is Tristan ?) , the symphonie · of Bruckner . At the same time he is a wonderfu l accompanist, in the best sense of the word . obody w ill forget his partnering of instrumentalist in his years with the LPO. and it is the same with singers: the suppo r t i constructi ve , vital.

Gl yndebourne is lucky to ha ve him, and there wi ll be more re velation from him in the Sussex Down s. At the same time, one look s forward to those Wagner readings from him that we should be ha ving at Coven t Garden , perhaps a n alternate and complementary v iew to Colin D avis· approach. What could be more in viting than a Haitink Ring, hi s first?

Bernard Haitink in th e Green R oom at Glyndebourne (/.) with rhe Ph onogram producer Volker Strau s, and (r. ) in the library

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