In today's Sunday Times - London:
HUGH CANNING sees the Berlin Philharmonic's chief
conductor-elect woo press and audiences with Mahler
and broken German
I am ein Berliner
Berlin's love affair with Sir Simon Rattle was confirmed last weekend,
when the British conductor made his first appearance at the city's
Philharmonie with the band he will soon - well, after 2002 at least
- be able to call his own: the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, arguably
the world's most prestigious symphonic ensemble.
The two performances of Deryck Cooke's realisation of the sketches
of Mahler's 10th Symphony came at the climax of the "Berlin Festival
Weeks", in which virtually every note of Mahler's music - including
his arrangements of a Weber opera and his retouching of a Schumann
symphony - was performed. Both were packed out. Remarkable really,
for although the Mahler-Cooke symphony had its German premiere in
Berlin (under the baton of Rattle's sometime mentor, Berthold
Goldschmidt) in 1964, and two recordings with other Berlin orchestras
are extant, the Berlin Philharmonic has never before tackled Mahler's
unfinished masterpiece.
The 10th, in Cooke's astonishingly Mahlerian version, has long been
central to Rattle's repertoire. His first recording for EMI, an
astonishing 21 years ago, was of this very work with the Bournemouth
Symphony Ochestra, and during his still-young career he has conducted
it more than 90 times. Indeed, he can justly claim to be the work's
foremost champion, and there was a time when he used his reputation
as one of the hottest young conductors in the business to insist on
a debut with a work that most senior Mahlerians have only conducted
in fragmentary form: the glorious torso of the opening Adagio, the
only one of the five movements that Mahler completed in its full
orchestral clothing.
Twelve years ago, when Rattle made his debut with the Berlin
Philharmonic, Mahler's 10th would have been out of the question.
The orchestra's autocratic chief conductor, Herbert von Karajan,
belonged to the old school of Mahlerians who refused to accept that
Cooke's orchestration was a valid and viable addition to the Mahler
symphonic canon. Rattle had to compromise with a thrilling performance
of the Sixth Symphony, which began the relationship that led to his
election as Claudio Abbado's successor in three seasons' time.
But the fact that the Berliners were prepared to programme the 10th
at all as part of Berlin's Mahler-fest must be a sure indication of
the high estimation with which Rattle is regarded by the musicians,
especially the younger players Abbado has done so much to recruit in
his 10 years at the helm. At the time of the election of the new
chief conductor in June, it was put about that among a short list of
four or five names, Rattle and Daniel Barenboim - music director of
the State Opera, in what used to be the heart of East Berlin - were
close frontrunners in the first ballot, but it transpires that Rattle
was elected by a substantial majority.
Although the players would probably not admit it, the overwhelming
support given to Rattle by the Berlin and national German press, and
the rapturous reception accorded him by the public for two programmes
he conducted there immediately preceding the voting, must surely have
influenced their decision, even though one would think it obvious to
any musician that Rattle is without question Barenboim's superior as
a symphonic conductor. Certainly, Rattle has galvanised the Berlin
public with his charismatic platform presence - what one might call
Rattle-dazzle - and the youthful informality of his offstage persona.
He has charmed the Berlin press, too, with his novice efforts to
speak German ("Denglisch", they call it), and the photographers, with
his mane of silver-grey locks and oddball taste in casual clothes.
He already has a youthful following in Berlin: outside the hall for
the first concert a queue of 100 hopefuls gathered for any returns,
most of them of student age. Tickets for Philharmonic concerts -
most of them available by subscription, for which there is a
Glyndebourne-style waiting list - are notoriously difficult to obtain,
so Rattle will have to do something for younger music lovers in Berlin.
At his press conference, the day after the first of the two Mahler
10ths, Rattle was in touchy-feely, new Labourish mode, revealing
little about his plans for the orchestra but talking a lot about his
new musical family in Berlin. He repeatedly emphasised that he was
in "for the long haul", although when asked whether he would live in
Berlin, he honestly replied that London was "home" (Berlin journalists
must have short memories, for Karajan never lived in the city - he
always stayed in a suite reserved personally for him at the Kempinski
Hotel).
Rattle deftly fielded some hostile questioning about earlier
reservations he had publicly expressed about the orchestra, and
balanced his regard for the Berliners' historic traditions -
acknowledging his predecessors Nikisch, Furtwangler, Karajan and
"Claudio" - with implicit criticisms of Karajan's artistic directorship
and the conservative programming of his later years. A decade after
the great German conductor's death, his memory has acquired a rosy
aura - at least for those who don't care about his opportunistic
dealings with the Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s - but his last years
with the Berlin Philharmonic were soured by rows over orchestral
appointments and financial scandals whose repercussions the
classical-music industry is still feeling today. In every sense,
Rattle's appointment represents a break with a discredited past of
classical music for a social elite, and Berlin's Senate - more
concerned than ever to justify the huge arts subsidies swallowed up
by the city's most important arts institutions - will welcome Rattle's
refreshing determination to make classical music of the highest
quality available to all. For a British visitor, the press conference
supplied at least one priceless moment of sublime irony, when a young
journalist asked Rattle if he would work to secure more money for
the players. The Philharmonic gets about 7m from the city - more
than twice as much as the four independent London orchestras receive
together from the Arts Council of England. Many of the players are
on fat salaries as professors in the music colleges, and all of their,
admittedly dwindling, freelance earnings through recording go straight
into their own pockets. A wry smile fleetingly appeared on Rattle's
face as he presumably pondered the comparatively pitiful remuneration
of British orchestral musicians, and of his "Birminghamsters" in
particular.
The concert itself was a personal triumph for Rattle and perhaps the
most significant in the history of Cooke's performing version of
Mahler's Unfinished, since the Berlin Philharmonic will be certainly
the most high-profile orchestra in the world to have recorded the
10th with a front-rank conductor (EMI's microphones caught both
concerts live and will issue the record next year). Although the
performance betrayed some signs that the music was not yet in the
orchestra's blood - the exhaustingly high writing for brass instruments
taxed the principal trumpets, and the strings did not soar as sweetly
into the stratosphere as they did in the Karajan days - it was a
performance of such high drama and emotional intensity that Cooke's
work seemed more Mahlerian than ever.
It has been fascinating over the past few weeks to have had the
opportunity to hear the three finest orchestras in Europe playing
symphonies by Mahler: the Vienna Philharmonic under Rattle in the
Second at the Proms and Edinburgh Festival, Amsterdam's Royal
Concert-gebouw Orchestra under Riccardo Chailly in the Fourth at
London's Festival Hall, and Rattle with his Berliners in the 10th.
Of the three, surprisingly perhaps, it was the enthralling, immaculately
played account of the Fourth by the RCO and Chailly that struck me
as the most completely realised, but the Amsterdamers were playing
in London after a sequence of performances, and Chailly - alone, it
seems, of the leading international maestros - knows how to make the
notoriously unflattering acoustic of the RFH work for his orchestra.
But Rattle's rapport with both the Berlin and Vienna orchestras is
now such that, despite passing technical frailties, he can achieve
electrifying results in the concert hall. Certainly, the Berliners
of Rattle's Mahler 10th were unrecognisable as the complacent band
that played dreary Beethoven, Schumann and Brahms at the 1998 Edinburgh
Festival. It will be interesting to see whether the Rattle effect
has made any impact on their playing for Abbado when the Italian
conductor brings them to the RFH for a performance of Mahler's Third
Symphony on October 11. Rattle evidently makes musical sparks fly,
and the players are in for perhaps a rougher ride than they bargained
for. Exciting times lie ahead for Berlin audiences, and one only
hopes that London will get the benefit of being the home of the Berlin
Philharmonic's chief conductor-elect.
Tony Duggan, England.
My (developing) Mahler recordings survey is at:
http://www.musicweb.force9.co.uk/music/Mahler/index.html
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