Rattle to the LSO

[papsrus]

LINK

Will be excited for our UK contingent, I'd say.

[A Lark Ascending]

I like Rattle.

I'm not qualified to judge how good he is at waving a stick, but I've always admired his adventurous programming. He was born the same year as me and was just appearing as I got interested in classical music. Saw him a few times, including in Birmingham.

Also big on education.

Recommend the TV series he did over 20 years ago called 'Leaving Home' about 20thC music. Looks a bit dated in format now but did a great job at getting you intrigued about that music without losing you in technical or philosophical details.

Welcome home.

[David Ayers]

Yes this is good for us. His recent appearances here with LSO and BPO have been outstanding. LSO were at their pinpoint best for him!

[Chuck Nessa]

Good for marketing the LSO.

Musically, I care not.

[David Ayers]

I'm guessing that Waldorf will agree with you.

[soulpope]

Good for marketing the LSO.

Musically, I care not.

same here...

[David Ayers]

I don't think this will affect either of you very much. I can only testify to how good Rattle's recent London concerts were. I am not even sure who might have been the alternative. I know that people don't take too much from Rattle's recordings of Austro-German classics but that is only part of it. He will put in more work than Gergiev has done. The programming will be forward-looking. Above all I can see and hear that he knows how to get the best from people. From my point of view, it is a question of the next five or ten years with my favorite of the local orchestras. I was sceptical before the recent London performances, but not now.

[David Ayers]

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/mar/03/simon-rattle-hornist-berlin-philharmonic-london-symphony-orchestra

For an alternative view.

[A Lark Ascending]

Simon Rattle is the seismic, creative shock UK classical music needs

And his priorities will be the same as they always have throughout his career: to democratise the art form, to shatter the dangerous illusion that the primary function of orchestras is to play concerts in gilt-edged cages around the world, and to connect new audiences with orchestral music. He did it in Birmingham and Berlin, and he will do it in London.

Let's hope so.

Edited March 4, 2015 by A Lark Ascending

[A Lark Ascending]

Excellent article here:

Simon Rattle is waving his baton at the wrong cause

Meanwhile, last week’s Warwick University report into the arts had some worrying findings. On the one hand the wealthiest, best-educated and least-ethnically diverse 8% of the population accounted for 44% of all attendances at live music. On the other, participation in music in schools by children aged between five and 10 has dropped from 55% to 37% between 2008/9 and 2013/14. Osborne may be firmly behind a concert hall, but where is its audience going to come from when children’s music education is in danger of withering? When education secretary Nicky Morgan is advising children against studying arts and humanities subjects? When Osborne’s colleagues at the culture department have removed £83m of arts funding since 2010?

Osborne, of course, may not be chancellor come 8 May. The plan for a Rattle Hall may fade if Sir Simon’s hypnotic glamour and undoubted talent fails to entrance the next incumbents. At any rate, perhaps Rattle has chosen the wrong set of conditions for his return. A decent, equal and well-resourced music education for all in Britain – wherever they live – would have been a more useful demand.

[papsrus]

Excellent article here:

Simon Rattle is waving his baton at the wrong cause

Meanwhile, last week’s Warwick University report into the arts had some worrying findings. On the one hand the wealthiest, best-educated and least-ethnically diverse 8% of the population accounted for 44% of all attendances at live music. On the other, participation in music in schools by children aged between five and 10 has dropped from 55% to 37% between 2008/9 and 2013/14. Osborne may be firmly behind a concert hall, but where is its audience going to come from when children’s music education is in danger of withering? When education secretary Nicky Morgan is advising children against studying arts and humanities subjects? When Osborne’s colleagues at the culture department have removed £83m of arts funding since 2010?

Osborne, of course, may not be chancellor come 8 May. The plan for a Rattle Hall may fade if Sir Simon’s hypnotic glamour and undoubted talent fails to entrance the next incumbents. At any rate, perhaps Rattle has chosen the wrong set of conditions for his return. A decent, equal and well-resourced music education for all in Britain – wherever they live – would have been a more useful demand.

Seems inevitable to me. I'd guess Paris' new hall was the last straw: "That's it. Call Rattle."

Noteworthy that the article barely touched (if at all) on Rattle's education outreach efforts, something the writer laments would be a better use of public funds. Not a zero sum game, after all.

David Geffen just donated $100 million toward the refurbishment of Avery Fisher in NY. Perhaps private fundraising could play a role in London?

Will be interesting to watch from afar.

[A Lark Ascending]

The problem is...London! As the article suggests at the end, why London? It already has everything (of course the answer is that The Establishment is based in London and they demand everything[and generally get it]).

Rattle has shown himself to have a broader vision than this. But can he resist the temptations and use his celebrity to argue for something that can break out of the traditional mould?

The most interesting part of the article...ironically given that we're talking maestros here...is where it discusses how poorly recognised composers are. The standard narrative of 'classical music' is maestro-driven. Top flight conductors and instrumentalists are followed as if they are Olympic athletes, everyone is encouraged to fawn over dead maestros. But where are the composers in all this? The dead ones seem to be there to serve the ambitions of the maestros (thus the endless duplication of standard repertoire); the classical music industry does not seem to know how to encourage interest in the living ones (probably because it's cheaper and easier to keep selling the old ones...'you must hear this new interpretation of Brahms 1', 'the 20 CD set of Schumpfendick's 1933 Berlin Bach is essential' etc).

I'm not talking replacing one with another; but I'd like to see a bigger push by the likes of Rattle to throw the emphasis off the star soloist, conductor and orchestra and onto the people who write the music. Maw by Rattle, not Rattle's Maw (yes, I know Maw is dead!).

When I was a kid the thing that excited me about music was hearing the new releases - you didn't know what was coming next. I then got drawn into the standard classicist approach of revering the glories of the past. Now the latter might appeal to a small demographic who have been educated to think that way. But I really doubt that it's a plan for replenishing the audience from the population at large.

Edited March 8, 2015 by A Lark Ascending

[paul secor]

Excellent article here:

Simon Rattle is waving his baton at the wrong cause

Meanwhile, last week’s Warwick University report into the arts had some worrying findings. On the one hand the wealthiest, best-educated and least-ethnically diverse 8% of the population accounted for 44% of all attendances at live music. On the other, participation in music in schools by children aged between five and 10 has dropped from 55% to 37% between 2008/9 and 2013/14. Osborne may be firmly behind a concert hall, but where is its audience going to come from when children’s music education is in danger of withering? When education secretary Nicky Morgan is advising children against studying arts and humanities subjects? When Osborne’s colleagues at the culture department have removed £83m of arts funding since 2010?

Osborne, of course, may not be chancellor come 8 May. The plan for a Rattle Hall may fade if Sir Simon’s hypnotic glamour and undoubted talent fails to entrance the next incumbents. At any rate, perhaps Rattle has chosen the wrong set of conditions for his return. A decent, equal and well-resourced music education for all in Britain – wherever they live – would have been a more useful demand.

Seems inevitable to me. I'd guess Paris' new hall was the last straw: "That's it. Call Rattle."

Noteworthy that the article barely touched (if at all) on Rattle's education outreach efforts, something the writer laments would be a better use of public funds. Not a zero sum game, after all.

David Geffen just donated $100 million toward the refurbishment of Avery Fisher in NY. Perhaps private fundraising could play a role in London?

Will be interesting to watch from afar.

Somehow, Geffen Hall just doesn't sound right.

[David Ayers]

Why London? Greater London has a population of 10m. The next two urban areas in England - Manchester and the West Midlands - have half of that combined. Both Manchester and Birmingham, the main cities in those areas, have modern concert halls. London doesn't. If it comes it will likely be in the City and the City will pay. I can't see where a comparable development is warranted in terms of population (and let alone that London is the only major city in the whole South of England) and I can't see where else such a project could plausibly be put. In any case, construction is not a zero-sum game. One facility in London does not preclude the construction of other facilities elsewhere.

[A Lark Ascending]

Does anywhere need a new concert hall? London has plenty. I can get to two easily, another four or five with a 3 hour round journey. Perhaps the far North; the West Country (I'm not aware of anything west of Bristol and Bournemouth (something of interest to me as I'm aiming to bury myself in that direction)).

The new London concert hall seems like a vanity project (the political interest stimulated by envy of continental buildings). The money could be spent in other ways to widen access and interest. Not likely, I know, in the current climate. And of no interest whatsoever to the gents in the City who would probably prefer to keep things for 'the wealthiest, best-educated and least-ethnically diverse 8%'.

Buildings will always triumph over less tangible ways of investing in music. After all, buildings are erections.

Edited March 7, 2015 by A Lark Ascending

[David Ayers]

What need one?

[A Lark Ascending]

I'll be needing a very modest building later in the year. Won't be calling on the City.

*******************

Of course, the appointment of Rattle could also be viewed as a chance missed:

Why the male domination of classical music might be coming to an end

Edited March 7, 2015 by A Lark Ascending

[papsrus]

Guardian surveys the "best" concert halls (although no Concertgebouw, so ... )

Have the London oddsmakers weighed in on this yet?

[A Lark Ascending]

Who will pay for a shiny new concert hall for Sir Simon Rattle to play in?

It appears that the musical cognoscenti are not happy with the Barbican Hall