Hugh Canning writes: >even though one would think it obvious to any musician that Rattle is >without question Barenboim's superior as a symphonic conductor. My naive question is, Is this really so? (And it's a genuine question, i.e., there is no insinuation that the claim is false.) A word about where I'm coming from. Rattle is a black box as far as I'm concerned: I've never heard any of his performances, and I will admit to a certain prejudice: I tend to discount British reviews of British artists, as I, rightly or wrongly, suspect that they are inflated. And since I have not encountered many reviews of Rattle's conducting outside of British publications, I really don't know what to think. Barenboim I know a bit better: I think I have overcome early negative ideas implanted by unsympathetic reviewers, and I have heard him live and on recordings. I know he is not uniformly well thought of, but he has engendered a certain amount of respect for some of his conducting work. Since some of that work is in the conducting of Wagner's operas (his TRISTAN and RING are pretty well regarded), I am assuming that Canning's specification of "symphonic conductor" is intended to grant that Rattle is not so obviously a superior opera conductor. 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? Nick [log in to unmask]