Nick Perovich wrote:

>I tend to discount British reviews of British artists, as I, rightly or
>wrongly, suspect that they are inflated.

We could say that we discount American reviews of American artists for the
same reason.  But we don't because I'm sure that they are not.  So why DO
you think we British especially are incapable of being objective about our
own artists? The implication is that 1) We don't have any artists to be
proud of, and 2) We are so hoplessly chauvanistic that we are incapable
of believing they can do any wrong.  Neither is true.

I speak as someone who heard Rattle's Mahler Fifth and loathed it.

>And since I have not encountered many reviews of Rattle's conducting
>outside of British publications, I really don't know what to think.

I have a couple of American critics' reviews of Rattle performances which
are pretty laudatory if you would like me to forward them.  I have also
seen other nationalities review Rattle performances and been even more
laudatory than the British (or the Americans).

>But some of Barenboim's work-- I am thinking of his Bruckner, Brahms, and
>Beethoven 7th--has received very favorable (but admittedly not uniformly
>favorable) attention.  So I ask, is Rattle's superiority to Barenboim
>really without question?

Having got the first two parts of my reply off my British chest, here I can
agree with you.  I too was surprised by Canning's claim.  I think they are
two different personalities with differing ideas about music.  We are the
benefciaries of that and to say one is "superior" to the other in any field
is more a case of mistaking an opinion for a fact rather than an example of
national bias.

Tony Duggan,  England.
My (developing) Mahler recordings survey is at:
http://www.musicweb.force9.co.uk/music/Mahler/index.html