Bernard Haitink made his first recordings for Philips with the Concertgebouw Orchestra in the late 1950s. He established a successful partnership with the Dutch label following his appointment in 1961 as the Concertgebouw’s youngest-ever principal conductor, a post shared with Eugen Jochum until Haitink took sole charge in 1964. The acclaim for these early recordings portended the grand project to record the complete symphonic works of Bruckner and Mahler – a decision which spoke to the strength of Haitink’s artistic vision and the confidence it inspired among executives at Philips.

Bruckner’s scores, so demanding of stamina, concentration and discipline, offered ideal material for the serious music-making cultivated by the young conductor and his Concertgebouw colleagues. The clarity of the conductor’s interpretation, matched by the hypnotic focus, dynamic breadth and sheer beauty of the orchestral playing, set the standard for subsequent recordings of Bruckner whilst continuing a living tradition of Bruckner playing in Amsterdam.

Beyond the work of an orchestra and conductor in a golden period, Haitink’s complete surveys of the Bruckner and Mahler symphonies owe much to the Amsterdam Concertgebouw itself, one of the great temples of culture. They further gained from the vision of the engineers, not least that of Jaap van Ginneken, who created a recorded sound of such striking depth, detail and realism. All these elements combined to attract countless new listeners to both Mahler’s and Bruckner’s music.

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