Rattle conducting the Berlin
Philharmonic.
Sir Simon Denis Rattle,
CBE, FRSA
, (born 19 January 1955) is an English
conductor. He rose to international
prominence as conductor of the
City of Birmingham
Symphony Orchestra and since 2002 has been principal conductor
of the
Berlin Philharmonic
(BPO).
Early life
Rattle was
born in Liverpool
, the son of Pauline Lila Violet (Greening) and
Denis Guttridge Rattle, a sub-lieutenant in the Royal Naval
Volunteer Reserves. He studied at Liverpool College
. Although Rattle studied
piano and
violin, his early work
with orchestras was as a
percussionist.
He entered the
Royal Academy of
Music
in London
in
1971. There, his teachers included John Carewe. In 1974, his
graduation year, Rattle won the John Player Conductor Competition.
After organising and conducting a performance of Mahler's Second
Symphony whilst still at the Academy, he was talent-spotted by the
music agent Martin Campell-White, of Harold Holt Ltd. (now Askonas
Holt Ltd.), who has since managed Rattle's career.
He spent the academic
year 1980/81 at St Anne's College, Oxford
studying English Language and Literature. He
had been attracted to the college by the reputation of
Dorothy Bednarowska,
Fellow and Tutor
in English.
He was elected an Honorary Fellow of
St
Anne's in 1991. He was admitted to the degree of Doctor of Music honoris causa of
the University of
Oxford
in 1999.
UK career
In 1974, he was made assistant conductor of the
Bournemouth Symphony
Orchestra, and in 1977 assistant conductor of the
Royal Liverpool
Philharmonic.
His time with the
City of Birmingham
Symphony Orchestra (CBSO) from 1980 to 1998 drew him to the
attention of critics and the public. In 1980, Rattle became the
CBSO's Principal Conductor and Artistic Adviser, and in 1990, Music
Director. Rattle increased both his profile and that of the
orchestra over his tenure. One of his long-term concert projects
was the series of concerts of 20th century music titled "Towards
the Millennium". One other major achievement during his time was
the move of the CBSO from its former venue, the Town Hall, to a
newly built concert hall, Symphony Hall, in 1991. The BBC
commissioned film director
Jaine Green
to follow him in his final year with the CBSO to make
Simon
Rattle — Moving On.
Rattle was awarded a CBE in 1987 and made a
Knight Bachelor in 1994. In 1992, Rattle was
named a Principal Guest Conductor of the
Orchestra of the Age of
Enlightenment (OAE), along with
Frans Brüggen. Rattle now has the title
of Principal Artist with the OAE. In
2001,
Rattle conducted the OAE at Glyndebourne in their first production
of
Fidelio with a period-instrument orchestra.
In May
2006 he was made an Honorary Fellow of the Society of Arts
.
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
Rattle made his conducting debut with the
Berlin Philharmonic (BPO) in 1987, in a
performance of
Gustav Mahler's
Symphony No. 6. In 1999, Rattle was appointed as successor to
Claudio Abbado as the orchestra's
principal conductor. The appointment, decided on in a June 23 vote
by the orchestra's members, was somewhat controversial, as several
members of the orchestra were earlier reported to have preferred
Daniel Barenboim for the post.
Nevertheless, Rattle won the post and proceeded to win over his
detractors by refusing to sign the contract until he had ensured
that every member of the orchestra was paid fairly, and also that
the orchestra would gain artistic independence from the Berlin
Senate.
Before
leaving for Germany and on his arrival, Rattle controversially
attacked the British attitude to culture in
general, and in particular the artists of the Britart movement, together with the state funding of
culture in the UK
.
Since his appointment, Rattle has reorganized the Berlin
Philharmonic into a foundation, meaning its activities are more
under the control of the members rather than politicians. He has
also ensured that orchestra members' wages have increased quite
dramatically, having fallen over the past few years. He gave his
first concert as principal conductor of the BPO on 7 September
2002, leading performances of
Thomas
Adès'
Asyla and
Gustav
Mahler's
Symphony No.
5, performances which
received rave reviews from the press worldwide and were recorded
for CD and DVD release by EMI. Early collaborative projects in the
Berlin community with Rattle and the BPO involved a choreographed
performance of Stravinsky's
Le
sacre du printemps and a film project with
Mark-Anthony Turnage's
Blood on the
Floor. He has also continued to champion contemporary music in
Berlin. The orchestra has established its first education
department during Rattle's tenure.
Criticism of Rattle's tenure with the Berlin Philharmonic began to
appear after their first season together, and continued in their
second season. The German critic Klaus Geitel was reported in 2004
to have described Rattle as "the weakest musical director of the
Berlin Philharmonic he's ever seen". Rattle himself stated in 2005
that his relationship with the BPO musicians could sometimes be
"turbulent", but also "never destructively so".
In 2006, a new controversy began in the German press as to the
quality of Rattle's concerts with the Berlin Philharmonic, with
criticism from the German critic Manuel Brug in
Die Welt.
One musician who wrote to the press to defend Rattle was the
pianist
Alfred Brendel. In 2007, the
BPO/Rattle recording of
Brahms's
Ein deutsches Requiem received the Classic FM Gramophone
best choral disc award.
Rattle was originally contracted to lead the BPO through 2012, but
in April 2008 the BPO musicians voted to extend his contract as
chief conductor for an additional ten years past the next season,
to 2019-2020.
UNICEF appointed Rattle and the BPO as
Goodwill Ambassadors in November 2007.
Conducting in North America
Rattle
made his North American debut in 1976, conducting the London Schools Symphony
Orchestra at the Hollywood Bowl
. He conducted the
Los Angeles Philharmonic (LAP) in
1979, and was their Principal Guest Conductor
from 1981–1994. He also guest-conducted the
Cleveland Orchestra,
Chicago Symphony Orchestra,
San Francisco Symphony,
Toronto Symphony
Orchestra, and
Boston
Symphony Orchestra.
His New York City
debut was with the LAP in 1985.
In 1993, Rattle made his conducting debut with The
Philadelphia Orchestra. He returned
for guest conducting engagements in
1999 and
2000.. The musical relationship between Rattle
and The Philadelphia Orchestra was reported to be such that
Philadelphia wanted to hire Rattle as its next music director after
Wolfgang Sawallisch, but Rattle
declined. However, Rattle continues to guest-conduct with The
Philadelphia Orchestra in what is currently his sole North American
guest-conducting engagement, including appearances in 2006 and the
Philadelphia Orchestra's first performances of Robert Schumann's
Das Paradies und die
Peri in November 2007.
Musical styles and recordings
Rattle has conducted a wide variety of music, including some with
period instruments (
musical
instruments contemporary with the music being played), but he
is best known for his interpretations of late-19th and early 20th
century
composers such as Mahler, with a
recording of Mahler's
Second
Symphony winning several awards on its release and being
regarded by some music critics as Rattle's finest recording to
date. He has also championed much
contemporary music, an example
of this being the TV series
Leaving Home, where he
presents a 7-part survey of musical styles and conductors with
excerpts recorded by the CBSO. His newest recordings with the
Berlin orchestra (as of 2006) have, on the whole, been favourably
received, notably his recordings of the Dvořák tone poems and
Debussy's
La Mer. The
Gramophone Magazine praised the
latter as a "magnificent disc" and drew favourable comparisons with
interpretations of the piece by Rattle's immediate predecessors,
Claudio Abbado and
Herbert von Karajan. He has also worked
with the
Toronto Children's
Chorus. Rattle and the BPO also recorded Holst's
Planets (EMI), which was the
BBC Music Magazine
Orchestra Choice. In addition, Rattle's complete 1989 recording of
George Gershwin's
opera Porgy and
Bess was used as the soundtrack for the
1993 television production of
the work. It was the first made-for-television production of
Porgy and Bess ever presented. Rattle's 2007 recording of
Brahms'
Ein deutsches Requiem received
praise from
BBC Music Magazine, as "Disc of the Month" for
April
2007, "as probably the best new version
of the
Requiem I've heard in quite some years." Rattle and
the BPO have also released recordings of
Bruckner's
Fourth Symphony,
Romantic, and
Haydn's
Symphonies Nos. 88-92 and Sinfonia concertante, and Mahler's
Ninth Symphony.
Simon Rattle's recording of Brahms'
Ein deutsches Requiem
with the BPO received the Choral Performance
Grammy Award in 2008.
Personal life
Rattle's first marriage was to Elise Ross, an American soprano,
with whom he had two sons, one of whom, Sacha, is a clarinettist.
They were divorced in 1995 after 15 years of marriage. His second
wife was
Candace Allen, a
Boston-born writer. This second marriage ended after Rattle and the
Czech mezzo-soprano
Magdalena
Kožená began a relationship. Kožená and Rattle have two sons,
Jonas and Milos.
Rattle is a fan of
Liverpool
F.C.
Books
Discography
References
- berliner-philharmoniker.de
- Elisabeth Jay, 'Obituary: Dorothy Bednarowska',
The Independent (17 January 2003), paragraph 6
- UNICEF: UNICEF appoints Berliner Philharmoniker Goodwill
Ambassador 2007-11-17.
- David Patrick Stearns, "Rattle's rocky road". Philadelphia
Inquirer, 2 February 2006.
- Ed Vulliamy, Simon Rattle: bringing Berlin home
to Liverpool, The Observer, 31 August 2008
External links
Wikis
Quiz
Map
Search
