Simon Rattle

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 13 January 2008

⏱️ 37 minutes

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Summary

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is Sir Simon Rattle. For the past five years he has been Principal Conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic - regarded by many as the finest symphony orchestra in the world. He is only the sixth person to hold the position in 120 years and is the first Briton to take on the challenge.

Growing up in Liverpool in the 1960s, while other youngsters were listening to The Beatles, he was transfixed by Mahler and was determined to become a conductor. His talent was prodigious. He won an international conducting competition aged just 19 and so, with plenty of enthusiasm but scant experience, began his career. Initially because of his youth, his approach was collaborative rather than autocratic and it has been a style that brought tremendous results during his 18-year association with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. He insists that his approach with the Berlin Philharmonic is about teamwork too - but concedes that it is an orchestra that contains some very strong characters and very big egos.

He tells Kirsty how, choosing his Desert Island Discs, he has been drawn towards music that expressed joy and pain in equal measure.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: Scherza Infida from Ariodante by George Frideric Handel Book: Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Luxury: Italian coffee machine and grinder.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Krestey Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive.
0:05.0	For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.
0:08.0	The program was originally broadcast in 2008. My castaway this week is Sir Simon Rattle. He is beyond doubt the finest British conductor of his generation and has been causing a stir for
0:34.8	35 years.
0:36.6	His epiphany came in Liverpool in 1966.
0:40.0	Whilst most youngsters around the world were gripped by the music of four lance from his hometown.
0:44.4	He was listening to a performance of Marler's Second Symphony and was gripped by the certainty that
0:49.5	he must be a conductor.
0:51.6	He was 11. He led an orchestra for the first time, aged just 15.
0:56.5	Things have gone pretty well as a grown-up too. He notably transformed the City of
1:00.4	Birmingham Symphony Orchestra from a provincial company hammering out old favorites in the
1:04.5	town hall to one of the most capable, adventurous and challenging in the world.
1:09.6	And now, as the Principal Conductor and artistic director of the Berlin Philharmonic,
1:14.0	he has what is widely regarded as the best job in the business.
1:18.0	The Berlin Philharmonic then is described by some as the Rolls- Royce of orchestras.
1:23.0	It seems to me that's not quite right.
1:25.0	It's not one of those vehicles that anybody can drive
1:29.0	and will faultlessly perform whoever is behind the wheel.
1:32.0	It's much more spirited than that, much more like a, maybe a Formula One car.
1:36.0	I think that's true and it will happily drive itself off the road if you ask it to,
1:42.0	but if you can manage to steer it in the right direction,
1:46.5	and it's a group of extraordinarily brilliant capable and also very strong-minded people.
	...

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