Music - Keith Clarke celebrates the dignified career of Bernard Haitink on his 75th birthday

As Bernard Haitink works his way through a series of concerts at the Barbican Hall marking his 75th birthday, he will do so with a minimum of fuss. This outwardly dour Dutch conductor has always confounded our expectations of an international musical heavyweight. Not for him the rigid power games of a Herbert von Karajan or the colourful verbal outbursts of a Georg Solti (known to orchestral players as "the screaming skull"). Haitink is renowned for quietly getting on with the job - and producing spectacular results.

Such is Haitink's reticence that you may not have heard of him at all. Yet this is a man who has made countless records, commanded the world's greatest orchestras and held major artistic directorships. Five leading orchestras are participating in the birthday season, and the repertoire includes his trademark Mahler, Bruckner and Shostakovich, none of them short of the kind of brooding depth so characteristic of the man.

Haitink was chief conductor of the Amsterdam Concertgebouw from 1964 to 1988, principal conductor of the London Philharmonic from 1967 to 1979, music director at Glyndebourne between 1978 and 1988 and music director of the Royal Opera House from 1987 to 2002. The Covent Garden job proved the greatest challenge, as he was there during the botched two-year closure for a multimillion-pound redevel-opment: the revolving door spat out three chief executives in two years, the orchestra was threatened with disbandment and morale hit rock-bottom.

At the end of an evening of Wagner at the Royal Albert Hall, Haitink turned to the audience and spoke passionately in defence of the orchestra. He quit at one stage, but climbed back on board when he considered that his pleas had been heard. The orchestra was kept intact, for which Haitink could take some credit. Yet, for many, it was all too little. Had Solti been faced with such a cesspit during his time as musical director of the Royal Opera, he would have had no hesitation in ensuring some kind of victory through sheer force of personality. As the company lurched from one public relations disaster to another, Haitink wrung his hands but, in the end, did not have the clout to alter the course of events.

However, despite his mild manner, Haitink has always known what he wants and has set about achieving it with dog-ged determination. That applies equally to his choice of music. Do not look for cutting-edge contemporary work in his repertoire. During his 15 seasons at Covent Garden, only two new operas were premiered, neither of which he conducted. That reflects little glory on the Royal Opera House of the time.

There is something admirable about Haitink's resolution to stick with what he knows and loves. Whatever the criticisms made of him, you can leave the concert hall totally transported by his vision. True to form, he does not achieve results with wild gestures or choreography, nor through extravagant outbursts at rehearsal. "When you start to talk to orchestras, then you are losing it," he said recently. It is an approach that wins over orchestral players, who are renowned for regarding many conductors with disdain. As one orchestra member remarked, the crucial difference between a bull and an orchestra is that a bull has the horns at the front and the arsehole at the back. Musicians are unusually positive about their experience of working with Haitink.

Players are also full of tales about his amorous adventures over the years. The London Philharmonic once made him blush at a Glyndebourne rehearsal by crooning "Who's your lady friend?" to a passage from La Traviata. They won't get a chance to do it again. Haitink suddenly announced that his days as an opera conductor are over. The Royal Opera had hoped to lure him back with Wagner's Meistersinger in 2007, but he declared that standing up for four and a half hours aged 78 would be "idiocy".

Opera's loss is the concert hall's gain, and Haitink's loyal audiences can hope that he continues to exercise his magic there for years to come - albeit in an understated kind of way.

Haitink commenced his birthday series with the Amsterdam Concertgebouw on 20 and 21 March. He will conduct the Vienna Philharmonic on 28 April, the London Symphony on 13 June, the Berlin Philharmonic on 27 September and the Dresden Staatskapelle on 2 November at the Barbican Centre, London EC2 (0845 120 7550)

Keith Clarke is the editor of Classical Music

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