Prom 63 (30.8.12): Berlin Philharmonic and Sir Simon Rattle

[jayne lee wilson]

I defy anyone to hear the opening of Sumera's 3rd and not think, whoa, wait a MINUTE...!
(Available for extensive sampling on eclassical.com...)

[ahinton]

Mr Hinton,

I am surprised. If I am not mistaken by your post, I gather that your opinion of Mr Luto is that he is not one of the greats of the 20th C? Am I correct? Surely you would view works such as the 2nd, and Livres (along with with works such as Jeux Venetiens) as siginificant? I apologise if I have picked you up incorrectly!

BTW, your Szymanowski reference is most apposite (imo).

You need not be surprised, you are mistaken, what you gather of my opinion of Luto is quite wrong! Sorry! My point here was principally to note that BPO/Rattle's performance of the Third Symphony was, for me, far and away above any that I have heard previously in every respect and it elevated my view of the work considerably! No need for an apology on your part! - but I have have indeed spread such misunderstanding, there's evidently a need for one on mine!

[ahinton]

I'm sorry Jayne, but that sounds like a comment from a wide-eyed music student. If Rattle said that, he remains the wide-eyed student to me.

I do wish he wouldn't do that kind of thing, but it's not the first time. I've not forgotten his description of Gurrelieder as "the world's biggest string quartet"; not without a little truth and we know of what he speaks, but it just sounds too uncomfortably much like an attention-grabbing catchphrase, although the Ligeti/Wagner one seems to me rather more like a similar kind of catchphrase that doesn't have a grain of truth in it and seems like rather a pointless throwaway soundbite to me. But who cares, really, in the wake of performances as outstanding as those that we've just heard from him and his band?!...

[Roslynmuse]

Intrigued by the polarised opinions on here, I listened to part one last night. Can't really comment on the Ligeti as I don't know it well enough, but the Wagner seemed uninvolved, a lovely sound for the most part (some less than precise ensemble?), but somehow lacking human warmth. I didn't feel as if I'd made a journey of any sort by the end. There was no sense of aspiration.

I listened to the Sibelius with the score. On the whole Rattle is faithful (or perhaps not unfaithful) to the the composer until the last movement, when an unwarranted slowing down completely undermined the final pages. Elsewhere, there was some terrific detail but - as someone else commented - I felt (particularly in movements 1 and 3) that I was hearing a succession of phrases shaped and studied out of existence rather than an organic whole. Many of those phrases gave the impression of being presented in their ideal form, but the lack of musical cohesion really made me question that impression. There seemed to be lots of close-ups but never the whole picture. (Flutes seemed curiously reticent at times.)

I remember disliking Rattle's Sibelius 5 when it came out in the 1980s. So maybe it's just a case of my Sibelian template not being flexible enough to take Rattle's view of the music.

He did Jeux with the NYO in 1984, and I remember being underwhelmed by it in the pre-Prom performance in Liverpool - I'd been getting to know the piece through the Haitink recording and that seemed so right and inevitable a reading; Rattle badgered the piece out of existence. Wonderful Mahler 6 in the second part of that concert though. I haven't heard his recent Mahler; he certainly knew how to conduct it then (to my ears).

[jayne lee wilson]

Rattle has always been an adventurous, re-creative, exploratory conductor, always giving us segues or varying interpretations. Remember the Webern-Schoenberg-Berg Orchestral Pieces sequence at the 2010 Proms, played without lengthy pause or applause? You may not like what he does, but he's never going to give you "his" reading of a given symphony routinely, season-in season out. He may do a lean, brisk and frosty Sibelius 4 next year, or with a different orchestra. So I think it's not as straightforward with him as with some other conductors whose recordings and performances tend to remain consistent, whether interesting or not.

[heliocentric]

Rattle's comment (...) was, if you played Atmospheres and the Lohengrin Act 1 prelude simultaneously (I wish someone would...) you'd almost have Sibelius 4.

He's gone up in my estimation for saying that.

[amateur51]

Rattle has always been an adventurous, re-creative, exploratory conductor, always giving us segues or varying interpretations. Remember the Webern-Schoenberg-Berg Orchestral Pieces sequence at the 2010 Proms, played without lengthy pause or applause? You may not like what he does, but he's never going to give you "his" reading of a given symphony routinely, season-in season out. He may do a lean, brisk and frosty Sibelius 4 next year, or with a different orchestra. So I think it's not as straightforward with him as with some other conductors whose recordings and performances tend to remain consistent, whether interesting or not.

Thank you jlw - prosecco