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Berlin Philharmonic/Rattle - review
Barbican, LondonMahler looms larger than any other composer in the Berlin Phil's current London season. His music has long been a Rattle speciality, but even so the concentrated empathy with which...
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Berlin Philharmonic/Rattle Southbank- review
Barbican, LondonConductors and orchestras evolve all the time, their relationship constantly shifting. With luck that development takes them in the same direction, as it most certainly did when Simon...
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Berlin Philharmonic/Rattle – review
Royal Festival Hall, LondonSimon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic's London residency closed with Mahler's Third Symphony, one of music's grandest statements.Conceived on the greatest of scales, it...
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Rattled: how to ruin a classical music concert
The idiot who shouted 'bravi' at Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic shattered the rapture that follows a great renditionAnd so, having taken the audience to the heights of late-romantic bliss...
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Mahler: Symphony No 2 – review
Royal/Kožená/Berlin Radio Choir/Berliner Philharmoniker/Rattle(EMI, two CDs)Simon Rattle's first version of the Resurrection Symphony, recorded with the CBSO and Arleen Augér and Janet Baker as...
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Berlin Philharmonic: the world's best orchestra
Over four nights in London, Simon Rattle and his virtuosic players astounded audiences. So how do they do it?Curling up like a wisp of smoke before a blaze, violinist Guy Braunstein marked the arrival...
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The secret of Berlin's shine | Charlotte Higgins
Our orchestras would be as great as the Berlin Philharmonic if only they weren't worked so hardIn the horn players' dressing room at the Philharmonie, the home of the Berlin Philharmonic, there is a...
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LSO/Rattle – review
Barbican, LondonSimon Rattle concerts are doing a London bus impersonation: none for ages, then arriving in droves. After his four Berlin Phil concerts in London last month, Rattle returned for his...
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The best classical music for spring 2011
A new music-theatre piece celebrates the life of the novelist Anaïs Nin, while the CBSO completes its Mahler cycle with Das Lied von der Erde under the baton of Simon RattleAnaïs NinLouis Andriessen's...
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Salzburg Easter festival/Rattle; The Rite of Spring/Volkov CBSO – review
Salzburg; BirminghamFourteen months ago, scandal nearly destroyed the Salzburg Easter festival. This annual event, founded by Herbert von Karajan in 1967, is a compact, private version of the more...
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Berlin Philharmonic: A Musical Journey in 3D – review
UK cinemasMost of my musical journeys are in 3D, but then I'm lucky enough to hear most of my music live. I am probably therefore not the target audience of this cinema release by the Berlin...
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Barbican unveils Olympics arts festival
Programme includes theatre productions starring Juliette Binoche and Cate Blanchett, and major Bauhaus exhibitionThe Barbican arts centre in London will celebrate next year's Olympics with an...
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CBSO/Rattle – review
Symphony Hall, BirminghamThough visiting orchestras have contributed, Birmingham's centenary Mahler cycle has been mostly the responsibility of the City of Birmingham Symphony. They brought it to an...
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Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment/Simon Rattle – review
Royal Festival Hall, LondonFor a musician who is said to have turned his back on Britain, Simon Rattle has been around the old place rather a lot in 2011. Not that there was a great deal of effort...
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Ruth Mackenzie: 'The London 2012 festival is going to be amazing'
Two years ago the Cultural Olympiad was floundering. Has new boss Ruth Mackenzie turned it around? She talks mass bell-ringing, Barenboim and beaches with Charlotte HigginsLast year, when Ruth...
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CBSO, Stephen Hough/Nelsons; Bamberg Symphony Orchestra/Nott – review
Symphony Hall, Birmingham; Bamberg, GermanyDouble basses quiver and swirl on a note so murky it is hard to hear the pitch. A lone trumpet ascends in a three-note sunrise through an octave, followed by...
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Why Oramo is great news for the BBCSO
Conductor Sakari Oramo will raise the BBC Symphony Orchestra's game and put a smile on their faces, writes Fiona MaddocksBarely a week passes without a shuffle of conductors' chairs. Why has today's...
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Magdalena Kožená: 'I'm not scared of the big maestro'
What's it like to sing Carmen when your husband is the conductor? Magdalena Kožená (aka Lady Simon Rattle) reveals all to Kate ConnollyMagdalena Kožená believes musicians fall into two categories....
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Bruckner: Symphony No 9 (four-movement version) – review
Berliner Philharmoniker/Simon Rattle(EMI)Bruckner's Ninth Symphony is generally regarded as one of the great musical torsos, alongside other unfinished works such as Mahler's 10th Symphony and Elgar's...
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Mystery of the maestros: what are conductors for?
How do conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Simon Rattle and Valery Gergiev work? Tom Service drops in on leading orchestras to find outThe first concert of orchestral music I ever went to – I was seven...
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