Bernard Haitink †

Bernard Haitink held a very special place in all the players’ hearts. In 2008 he began a Beethoven cycle with the COE at the Lucerne Festival which went on to be repeated in Amsterdam and Paris. They then embarked on a major Brahms cycle in Lucerne, with further performances in Amsterdam, Paris and Frankfurt. In 2015, they also undertook an extensive Schumann cycle in Amsterdam, Lugano and Vienna. Following acclaimed all-Dvorak concerts at the Lucerne Summer Festival in 2016, Bernard Haitink and the COE reconvened in Amsterdam in January 2017 for two performances with Kristian Bezuidenhout and Alina Ibragimova. At the end of 2017, the COE, Bernard Haitink and singers Anna-Lucia Richter, Eva-Maria Westbroek and Hanno Müller-Brachmann performed works by Mozart, Mahler and Wagner at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and at the Philharmonie Luxembourg. Following concerts with Sir Andras Schiff and Alina Ibragimova at the Lucerne Festival in 2018, the COE celebrated Bernard Haitink’s 90th birthday in 2019. Together, we performed in Cologne, Luxemburg and also at the Lucerne Summer Festival just before he officially retired from conducting. The COE’s relationship with Bernard Haitink was very special and, in his words: “with the COE, I feel I am not a conductor anymore. I feel like a musician who can make music with them” and “this Orchestra is the greatest gift in the later stages of my career.”