Brahms Night with Bernard Haintink and Emanuel Ax BBC Proms

Tonight at the Proms, one of the world's finest forecasters --

orchestras celebrating one of them titans of the Romantic period,

Johannes Brahms. Two concertos to with into, that capsule late

perfectly the imaginative and sensitive assets of his personality.

Who better to give voice is to these works than the wonderful

Chamber Orchestra of Europe, conducted by Bernard Haitink? This

is surely as good as it gets. Joining as backstage throughout the

evening, Ritula Shah. Since its foundation 30 years ago, the

Chamber Orchestra of Europe has become one of the world's most

exciting performing ensembles. It is a real event. Drawn from

orchestras around the European Union and further afield, these are

some of the best musicians around and I will be speaking to some of

them during the interval. Thanks. First up, Brahms's Third Symphony,

written when he was 50 and already established as one of Europe's

leading composers, but the symphonic landscape this time was

still dominated by Beethoven's towering legacy and so it was in

1883, with his Third Symphony, Brahms proved once and for all that

he had last found his own unique symphonic voice. Let's hear what

some of tonight's players had to say. If I think Brahms was at peace

with himself more so for this symphony than the others. He seems

to present beautiful themes in a It is beautifully reflective and it

is almost autumnal in the colours and the emotional content.

Something intimate and very personal, like someone's private

Full of life! Full of emotion and passion and beauty and sadness.

Just all the things that we play with the music instead of saying it

with words. Maybe the things we cannot say with words. Some of

tonight's musicians at rehearsals earlier in the week. As you can see,

the orchestra on stage. If you would like to read a complete list

of the members of this Chamber Orchestra of Europe, you can do so

If in the music you would like to see a dedicated shot of the

wonderful conductor, Bernard Haitink, along with expert

commentary, just press the red You can see the leader, Marieke

Blankestijn, co-ordinating the tuning of the orchestra. With

something like 250 recordings and a string of illustrious prizes, the

Chamber Orchestra of Europe is celebrating their 30th anniversary

in style. They have a core membership of 50 players but

tonight it expands to 60, just to fill the stage up at the Royal

Bernard Haitink, making his way The extraordinary thing about this

orchestra, how they play, they are not full-time. They organised 10-15

projects a year, ranging from a conference to us, recordings and

operas, alongside have been busy solo and change their careers and

been professions of music at the leading conservatories of the world.

A Rolls Royce of an institution, you might say. -- as well as being

the professors of music. APPLAUSE. Here he comes now.

Bernard Haitink. Joining the musicians of the Chamber Orchestra

of Europe and together, we will hear their befall Brahms's Third

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 2365 seconds

Brahms's Third Symphony. The COE When I look at the Third Symphony

of Brahms, I feel like a tinker, so wrote no less a symphonist than it

Sir Edward Elgar. Brahms has secured himself a place in the

musical panoply as one of the three Bs alongside Beethoven and Bach.

Averill performance of serenity, a kind of gentle poetry. This great

conductor, Bernard Haitink, has been conducting Brahms for over 50

years. He summed up his sense of Brahms remarkably well. He said he

thought that Brahms thought with his heart and fault with his brain.

I am delighted to be joined now by the composer and a professor from

Oxford, Robert Saxton. Can you tell a bit about what was going on at

the time of this symphony? Yes, this was Brahms at the age of 50.

He lived until he was just over 60. At that time, Gladstone was the

prime minister in England, Freud had just qualified in Vienna as a

neurologist, where Brahms lived. The internal combustion engine had

just been invented and tried out! It is interesting because you

mentioned Edward Elgar. He conducted at Symphony a lot. I

think that looking forwards, we will look backwards later, the

opening of that symphony is related to the opening of Elgar's second

and the tune in the last movement is very similar. What other music

was Brahms listening to in 1880? Brahms was listening to a

relatively new opera, Carmen. Didn't he claimed to have seen it

21 times? I did not know that! He loved Carmen, he loved Johann

Strauss, he famously wrote on a copy of the Blue Danube, alas, not

by Johann Strauss! The fact that died the year after that Symphony

was written. He knew Liszt's music. Marlowe was beginning to get going

at that time and Brahms knew him. The what do you think about the

Chamber Orchestra of Europe? 12 first violins, ten-seconds, eight

viola. It is a real challenge. This is more Brahms's size, like? Yes,

in fact the orchestra that gave the first performance of the Fourth

Symphony some years later than this had only 49 players and apparently,

Brahms said he liked that size of orchestra. Although of course he

did have bigger orchestras available but he seemed to like his

chamber music quality, which certainly came out there. It seems

to me that is what Bernard Haitink is so hot on. A kind of restraint.

Never pent up but it is letting the music speak. Those two middle

movements, they had such space and light to them, where another

conductor, probably myself included, might have gone for the hot spots

slightly hard to! It is almost as if he is playing them to himself on

the piano, which one suspects is a Brahms first brought them up, as

inspirations and improvisations which he then worked out formally

on his long and famous walks around Vienna, and yet that did come

across. Thank you. Time to join our a backstage with the musicians.

eye am joined by William Conway, principal cello, and one of the

newer members of the orchestra, Thomas Djupsjobacka.

William, how did the orchestra come into existence? In the late 70s, a

large group of the founding members became members of the European

Community's Youth Orchestra, as it was known then, now the European

Community's Union Orchestra, and we met to get there for the first time

and we had such a wonderful time playing together and discovering

this new world, you know, speaking personally as a teenager coming

from Glasgow where I was born to suddenly be in the European

orchestra with one of the world's greatest conductors standing in

front of you, and many European musicians around me, it was really

a huge thing and at that time a lot of the European ideas were just in

their early stages, of the orchestras and even in politics.

you all carried on and you formed the Chamber Orchestra. What would

you say is its special characteristic? The special

characteristic of this orchestra is its listening quality. Through the

music, Willie Thorne to one another and also, -- We listen to one

another and we are a very listening orchestra with one another and from

a musical point of view, that listening enables us to take in a

lot of good information from the good people around us and we build

on that. Thomas, you weren't there 30 years ago. What brought you to

the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. first touch on it was recordings. I

loved the quality of the orchestra and the Chamber music quality, and

I thought it would be amazing to be a part of it and luckily enough it

happen. Many of them are all do their new. Is there a sense of

mentoring was mad I would say there is a sense of being a colleague.

are a different age but we learn from each other. The younger

members like me learn from the wealth of experience and the

quality of the playing that is around me in every position of the

orchestra. Obviously I learned from that. I hope there is some kind of

exchange that every member brings his own and her own energy and play

in quality and style to the group. Would you agreed? Absolutely. We

learn just as much from the new people coming in. It is like a bank

that we all seeded to and take from. Thank you both very much.

An army of generals, you might say. The Chamber Orchestra of Europe

often play without a conductor but when they play with a conductor,

they certainly call on the very best. Speaking of which, I caught

up with Bernard Haitink, who has along and distinguished

relationship with the COE, and I are asked him what the attraction

was. It is quite a problem for me to be honest. I love the music

making so much that I am getting a bit suspicious of all these

official, big symphony orchestras. It sounds... It is strange. But

there is this incredible alertness... Sometimes I compare it

to a huge ocean steamer, who goes a long and then you want to change

course, you have to in advance make sure, and these are like a

speedboat! The commitment is enormous. They do it for love. Of

course I'm afraid they don't earn that much. It is a labour of love.

It is fantastic. Do you think there is something special about playing

Brahms with an orchestra of this size? Yes. Very special. Because

Brahms had most of his works, I even think the symphonies, perform

exactly the same as we have, so that was also at food for thought.

The speedboat analogy is quite interesting. Because it is a small

orchestra, there is more of a sense that everybody is playing like a

soloist, less room for cover. but they also have to be an

ensemble and they have very good years, they are excellent musicians.

I don't want to say anything about official symphony orchestras. They

are also excellent musicians. But the Chamber Orchestra has more

chance to hear each other, to relate to each other, because they

are small. They can make a lot of noise! If necessary! That's for

sure! Can you remember the first time you heard Brahms was mad that

is a long time ago. -- can you remember the first time you heard

Brahms? That is a long time ago. I am such an old time. I even think

it was during that time that... I was born in Amsterdam, I am Dutch...

That during the occupation time, we were not allowed to listen to the

radio but we all had of course a little radio, and at that time, I

think it was 1944, imagine! I heard one of my first Proms, and I even

think I headed debut of Handel. I think it was Brahms. I even think

that I heard Beethoven's 7th. And I listened to a lot of Proms, it was

totally different to what it is nowadays. On Monday night you had

Wagner, Basil Cameron, then you had Bach and Handel, it was an

incredible institution, and here we are. When you open a school of

Brahms, you have been conducting Brahms to the most extraordinary

degree for so many years, how much do you feel you have been on a

constant personal odyssey of his music in terms of your

interpretation? How different is the Third Symphony now than it

was...? The wide interpretation should be commit in a way, -- the

word "interpretation" should be forbidden. People say, that is my

interpretation. I get seasick in my stomach. We have these wonderful

scores and we have to try to make it work and we have wonderful

musicians, so what is the problem? Just make music. Use the wonderful

score which Brahms and which all composers have written. With Brahms,

it is a special thing because very often, one confuses Brahms we've

blown up, -- with being blown up but when you look at it, it is so

often little piano, intermittent, he was a man in between colours.

That fascinates me. I am very intrigued, the make-up of this

programme is quite unconventional in the sense that we have the Third

Symphony and after the interval we have the First Piano Concerto. It

was written 25 years earlier. Why that way round? Well, in a way, I

am the same sort of conductor as many of my colleagues who do not

want to finish with the Third Symphony because it finishes piano.

I have done it very often in that way because I am not too upset

about it but the First Piano Concerto is so enormously dramatic

and extrovert, much more than the Third Symphony, that I thought,

well, maybe that is better. One of the thing I most enjoyed in the

West has this morning was the extraordinary synergy and rapport

between you and the orchestra but also between you, the orchestra and

Emanuel Ax. Can you tell me about your relationship with it? I love

him, he is a wonderful artist. Above that, a wonderful friend. We

know each other for such a long time. I always have good memories,

are always good memories of his playing, his musicians ship.

Sometimes he drives me mad. He is so humble, he always says before we

go on stage "will we still be friends afterwards?". He is a

wonderful person. A wonderful musician. And he loves to work with

musicians. Bernard Haitink speaking after

rehearsals this morning. With me backstage are Kate Gould, cellist,

and Matthew Wilkie, principal bassoon. The COE has got a very

special relationship with Bernard Haitink. How did that come about?

believe we started our relationship in Switzerland, where we are lucky

to go regularly as an orchestra, and Bernard Haitink came along to

one of the concerts and apparently, so the story goes, according to the

man himself, he always thought he might come to the Chamber Orchestra

later on in his career and he decided to dedicate a lot of his

time to us so we have put a relationship over the last three,

four years, and we feel very privileged to do so. The

relationship musically consists of such a beautiful balance. He is

extremely powerful musician and yet he lets the orchestra speak so it

works very well with our Orchestra, which has a lot of personalities in

it and some help there is a sense of being natural between us.

Matthew, UWE Australian. You come all the way from Australia to play

with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. -- you are from Australia.

How does it work? I have been in orchestra for 25 years. I used to

live in Germany. I left Germany ten years ago to join the Sydney

Symphony but I just couldn't bear to cut the ties with the Chamber

Orchestra, so I managed to work it out with the orchestra in Sydney

and I get on that plane five times a year and every time I get on the

plane I think, why am I doing this?! I don't know, as soon as I

arrive and start working, it is just fantastic. Of course it is a

good orchestra but there is something very special about it. I

don't know. It reminds me of, it is an orchestra but it is like a

string quartet, the way it works, and musically we are so flexible

and the way we do things together without having to say anything. It

is a great attack -- attraction. What is it like working with a

soloist, Emanuel Ax? Different. It has got very organic. Suddenly

there is a very charismatic individual thrown into the mix! We

obviously have to be on tenterhooks listening to him, following the

conductor, it is a chain of command, but actually, Emmanuel AX is so

natural and he listens so much to the orchestra, like the conductor

does, that it all works extremely organically. And the body language

It feels like a partnership that was meant to happen. Thank you both

very much indeed. Thank you. With me, Robert Saxton, we are about to

hear the voice of the 25 year-old Brahms, already very successful and

no beard. What do you think we can hear from his personality in this?

The First Piano Concerto is a heritage of Beethoven, looking

backwards and also the Third Piano Concerto and the recent tragedy of

Robert Schumann's attempts suicide and death and bronze's conflict of

his feelings about claret, he was much older. We're talking about

those almost a posing personality traits. The fact that there is his

deep sense of drama but also very intensely sensitive? What makes

Brahms so expressive is that rather like Mozart, it is tightly formal

and classical in some senses but bursting at the seams because he

suppresses and one feels that very strongly in this piano concerto,

which did not start life as a piano concerto. This is Brahms at a

different period, this is Brahms before the internal combustion

engine, this is Brahms in what we would feel as mid-Victorian world.

The symphonies, the later Victorian type, they appeared after German

unity and this is Brahms of the mid- 19th century, as the young

Turk, if you like. And as a young Turk, he had a formidable

reputation as a pianist, this was his first solo performance?

first two performances and in Leipzig, he was a pest. Why? People

cannot understand that, it was described as a symphony with a

piano and it was not what they expected. And where the piano was

virtuoso, the dense musical argument of this work and the way

the piano interacts with the orchestra, and the material, they

find it very difficult to come to terms with. To some extent, have

they forgotten bit of an's legacy because this piece is very tautly

argued as a symphonic argument? is easy to forget in the days of

the CD and the iPod, people did not hear these pieces very often so

they probably had one or two earlier Piano concerto's and this

enormous scale, this first movement, 25 minutes, it must have been

incomprehensible. We are talking about the age of the Super virtuoso

and many of them stocking the stages of Europe at the time and

Brahms included, what evidence is there in this piece of that? First

of all, you have to have a very big reach to play Brahms, the chords

are a very large. It is also the range of colour that you need. The

spacing in relation to that and the Shia grasp of the material, the

piano consent with material that the orchestra has not played and

then does all sorts of things in relation to the orchestra and

Brahms is one of these players who played very much as a composer

rather than a pianist and although he was a very great pianist, he was

not a virtuoso in that tradition. Thank you so very much. Emmanuel AX,