sat 21/12/2024

Simon Rattle

Eberle, Prohaska, LSO, Rattle, Barbican

"Finally,” said Sir Simon Rattle, “I get a chance to say thank you. We have had forty years working together without an argument." The Royal Philharmonic Society was awarding an Honorary Membership to Martin Campbell-White, Rattle's agent. Campbell-...

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Classical CDs Weekly: Britten, Debussy, Schumann, Weinberg

 Britten, Weinberg: Violin Concertos Linus Roth, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin/Mihkel Kütson (Challenge Classics)“I am a pupil of Shostakovich. Although I have never had lessons from him, I count myself as his pupil, as his flesh and...

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Classical CDs Weekly, Sean Hickey, Lang Lang, Piers Lane

Sean Hickey: Cello Concerto, Clarinet Concerto Dimitry Kouzov (cello), Alexander Fiterstein (clarinet), St Petersburg State Academic Symphony Orchestra/Vladimir Lande (Delos)Sean Hickey’s 2007 Cello Concerto solves the problem of balancing soloist...

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War Requiem, Berlin Philharmoniker, Rattle, Philharmonie Berlin

How often should a music-lover go to hear Britten’s most layered masterpiece? From personal experience, I’d say not more than once every five years, if you want to keep a sense of occasion fresh. So how often should an orchestra play it? Sir...

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Classical CDs Weekly: Goossens, Mackintosh, Stravinsky

 Goossens: Orchestral works vol.2 Melbourne Symphony Orchestra/Sir Andrew Davis (Chandos)British conductor and composer Sir Eugene Goossens achieved major fame leading the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in the 1950s. Previously he'd given the first...

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Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Rattle, Royal Festival Hall

Period instruments demand absolute honesty from their players. Their sound is their personality - candid, quirky, eccentrically beautiful - but their soul is revealed in the spirit of the playing, where beauty is not skin deep and the expressiveness...

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Q&A Special: Conductor Sir Simon Rattle

Sir Simon Rattle (b. 1955) and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (est. 1986) have been together from the beginning. Founded by period-instrument musicians eager to run their own affairs rather than play obediently for conductor-managers like...

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BBC Proms: Bronfman, Berlin Philharmonic, Rattle

Champagne on ice in the private boxes; scarcely any spare seats. This isn’t the normal situation for a concert climaxing in Witold Lutosławski’s Third Symphony, a modernist work whose usual audience is more than two men and a dog but still doesn’t...

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BBC Proms: Berlin Philharmonic, Rattle

It's not completely unheard of what Sir Simon Rattle did at the start of last night's Prom, where he elided two familiar works - Ligeti's colouristic classic Atmosphères and the Prelude to Act One of Wagner's Lohengrin - into a...

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The Opening Ceremony, BBC One

Oh to have been a fly on the wall at the Palace. “Your Majesty, we’ve had a request from a Mr Boyle. It concerns the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games.” “I’m already opening the blessed thing, aren’t I? What else do they want?” “Ma’am, they just...

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Aimard, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Rattle, Royal Festival Hall

The repertoire of the OAE is creeping away from the 18th century and into the 20th with such unashamed eagerness, it wouldn't be at all surprising to see them throwing up an urtext edition of "Hit Me Baby One More Time" in a few seasons. Last...

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Classical CDs Weekly: Beethoven, Bruckner, Poulenc, Shostakovich

 Bruckner: Symphony No 9 (with Finale completed by Samale-Phillips-Cohrs-Mazzuca) Berliner Philharmoniker/Sir Simon Rattle(EMI)Anton Bruckner’s last symphony is near perfect in its three-movement form. The realisation that the Finale was left...

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