Simon Rattle: ‘I’ve got the only homeless top orchestra’
OrchestrasThe conductor continues his agitation for a new concert hall in Munich with a greeting to his orchestra on its 75th anniversary.
I wish the BRSO that they play for at least another 75 years with the emotional depth and passion they always had. We all love this orchestra, it is an extraordinary ensemble. This despite having to work under very difficult circumstances. It is the only homeless top orchestra in the world, the only top orchestra that does not have a permanent home in its own city. You travel back and forth between the concert halls. And yet they managed to reach this extraordinary level and have a feeling for music like few others. This is truly remarkable. Of course, I also wish you happy GurreLieder on your 75th. This work by Arnold Schoenberg is particularly closely linked to the BRSO: Kubelik’s interpretation, which was very unusual for the time, showed the world what a masterpiece it was. People tend to forget that Schoenberg was only in his early twenties when he wrote this. He was a composer who knew who he was.
Meaning?
Schoenberg said to himself: ‘This musical heritage that I can access, from Austria, Germany, from Brahms, Schumann, Wagner especially, and to a certain extent from Mahler – I can do that too. Greater. Better. Further. I can do it!’ This work was his liberation. According to the motto: ‘OK, Wagner. You have your Hagen, who calls for his men in the twilight of the gods. I can do that too – and with a lot more people. Simply more!’ Everything Schoenberg does is like a greeting to the past, an ‘I am here’. And if it weren’t such an incredibly beautiful and endearing piece of work, you’d have to give him a slap on the ass for behaving in such an impossible way. You can’t just perform this piece like that. I actually discovered this as a child because I was basically living in the music archive in Liverpool at the time. I was so impressed by the score, which was as big as myself. I couldn’t believe what he was asking an orchestra to do. There was a recording of it in the archive, which I took home with me, and the work has been part of my life ever since. I have always loved the piece. Especially if you love epic romantic music, there’s nothing that can beat this. And yet you can already feel how it is getting closer to today.
image: BR/Astrid Ackermann
Difficicult conditions? Homeless? Everyone I talk to says the Isarphilharmonie is a great acoustic and considerably better than most other concert halls around the world, and especially certain halls in other German cities. Give me a break, Simon.
No, he’s right. The Deutsches Museum, where the Kubelík was recorded, was never the BRSO’s home. The Herkulessaal is nobody’s home. The Gasteig was a failure.
The Isarphilharmonie lies in an ugly part of south Munich and was designed to be temporary: a cheap, cold, crude place. Its acoustics were oversold, as acoustics always are.
The BRSO deserves much better. But there is no path ahead because neither Munich’s mayor nor Bavaria’s minister-president cares about music. Not one but TWO concert-hall projects are stalled, effectively stopped, by these imbeciles in this great musical city, and hearsay like the bits you cite only encourage the imbeciles.
Rattle is right but he’s going to have to cope, just as he did in London. Nothing will change for the BRSO, alas, no matter how many hopeful construction-site photos are shot.
The Herkulessaal is the BRSO’s home and has been for the last half century or more. They just want a fancy new one.
as fancy as Simon…
Home means one doesn’t have to clear out completely after each use, which as you know is a requirement of Bavarian Palace Management.
What do you mean by “two concert-hall projects are stalled, effectively stopped”? Wasn’t the Gasteig supposed to be revamped and opened in a few years? I am asking, I don’t know the situations.
Thanks.
Don, I didn’t see this until just now.
Originally the re-gutted Gasteig was supposed to open next year, 2025. “Originally” means when the idea was approved (in 2017 by the city council) to build a temporary home to house Gasteig projects during a re-gutting. That is, three years to plan the new Gasteig and to plan and build the temporary facility, and five years of use of the latter while the former was being readied.
What actually happened was a switcheroo:
(1) the temporary hall got designed and built and went into service in 2021 in a bleak part of Munich, far south of the beloved Old Town so rich in musical history, a year late but with fanfare, including phony fanfare about its acoustics;
(2) the Gasteig’s re-gutting “plans were completed on schedule at the end of June 2020,” to quote its website, link below;
(3) the Gasteig was closed in 2021; and
(4) the re-gutting plans were suspended.
https://www.gasteig.de/en/redevelopment-plans/
Thank you for answering. Sad, what can I say?
The Isarphilharmonie is a temporary facility. Not just in intention but the entire structure and physical plant are presumably not designed to last. Or certified as such.
just get on with your job Simon, as you are the most overrated conductor around…you did the same in London and probably should have waited when your socialist friends will take over soon as they wouldn’t build you another hall either but we know how much you like the Socialists like useless Angela in Berlin who turned Germany into a disaster
Why don’t you just concentrate on your conducting or lower your fees?
Want to dribble a bit more Tristan with utter nonsense?
Does he never stop whinging?
No, he doesn’t!
He’s from Liverpool.
Without Simon’s ‘whinging’ Birmingham would be without Symphony Hall – one of the finest acoustics in the world.
I still hold that Gurre-Lieder is generally a waste of the resources one needs for a performance. Large swatches of it including most of Part I are derivative and a better orchestrator could have achieved the same effect with a less ridiculously sized orchestra.
Ironically, the above faults probably help it get performed, since it would be an even harder sell to audiences and management without the status of being the Pinnacle of Austro-German Late Romantic Gargantuanism.
Schönberg was actually in his late 20s when he began work on Gurrelieder and did not complete its orchestration until his mid-30s. A fabulous work eminently deserving of the attention that it receives – and the composer’s orchestral facility was up there with that of Mahler and Strauss.
Oh to be able to sing again that sailor’s chorus. Did it under Abbado, would love to do with under Rattle. Or anything Rattle wants to do. But I’m not moving to Munich for it.
Rattle please don’t throw around the word “homeless” when what you really mean is that you want a billion euro new concert hall, there are those who are truly homeless even in Munich, they live on the streets, and one need not even discuss who has a home or who deserves a home or whose home is it in that whole Middle East situation…
Oh well said Chet.
I get it, Sir Simon. You want to design and build a new, state-of-the-art concert hall that will be part of your legacy. You tried to do that in London, now you’re pushing for it in Munich.
If you want to show some leadership in this arena, come up with a plan to do a simple hall that prioritizes acoustics and sight lines rather than being a billion euro performing arts center that’s a monument to itself, like the Elbphilharmonie.
Rattle is responsible for Birmingham’s magnificent Symphony Hall. Period.
Partly.
Didn’t the council admit to being a little, shall we say, economical with the truth about its intended purpose, to secure funding?
Surprised they got away with it.
I was actually hoping that Rattle had actually created an orchestra by somehow obtaining lessons for people who were homeless and teaching them to be good enough to form a mini orchestra, with secondhand instruments and concert outfits donated by those who no longer needed them, perhaps under the auspices of a TV show, rather like what Gareth Malone has done with choral singing.
Rather disappointed to read that he actually meant BRSO not having their “own” concert hall. I think he might be either exaggerating the word “top” or “homeless”, because by that definition there are actually a lot of top orchestras that are “homeless”. Far from being homeless, most lay people and people in the music business would say that BRSO actually has more than one home, but they just happen to have room mates.
Talk about first world problems. “Homeless”? “Very difficult circumstances”? Get real dude. Walk around any big city and you’ll see lots of real homeless people, living rough, and genuinely experiencing very difficult, often existential, circumstances.
If your extraordinary ensemble wants a showpiece concert hall to showcase its talents, it can ante up, just like the rest of us living in the real world. Surely the expected flood of patrons will recoup that expense many times over, as it always does. Failing that, you could always try a GoFundMe.
The constant braying of the arts community for public funding, and the whining when the “imbecilic philistines” don’t deliver, is both pathetic and tiresome. If you’re going to be a beggar, have some dignity and go sit on a sidewalk with a can like the other beggars.
Well Simon, you left London because funding was never to be forthcoming in your lifetime for a new decent, modern London concert hall.
You knew the background including non interest from the powers that be in Munich.
So why go?
Perhaps because Jansons died, and one of the top orchestras on the continent offered him the directorship? Powers that be in Munich have much more of a chance of turning around on this subject than they do in London.
Der Rattler has been obsessed with new halls all his career. He had success in Brum in his youth. Yes, he revitalised a band but only in combination with the luck of a new hall which they happened to get right. Bricks and mortar remain, where orchestras change and morph under a new principal stick. In Berlin there was nothing for him to do, the Philharmonie exists in Karajan’s mould. He tried to do the same trick in London but failed, whining and carping about the RFH and Barbican. When he failed to get his way he moved to Munich where he whines and grumbles again. Enough of this bleating.
RFH and the Barbican are both quite inferior halls; there was good reason to advocate for something better.
I’m sick to the back teeth with the Rattle Bashers who crawl out from under their dungheaps to criticise the UKs top conductor at any given opportunity. Why shouldn’t he complain about the fact that his orchestra hasn’t got a State-of-the-Art Concert Hall? He’s perfectly entitled to want the best for his orchestra. Surely, any workmen tries to ensure he has the best tools available to do his work. Yes, he oversaw the construction of what is undeniably the best Concert Hall in the UK – Symphony Hall in Birmingham – but when the Berlin Phil come knocking you don’t turn them away. As for his – and the concert going public’s – disappointment with the promised new Concert Hall in London not materialising, it’s worth remembering that his predecessor at the LSO, Valery Gergiev, was similarly lied to by the Tory Government on the same matter. So, Rattle Bashers crawl away back into your dungheaps…..I’m off to listen to Rattle’s latest BRSO recording of Mahler 6 to drown out your pathetic whinging!
Simon Rattle managed to get a new concert hall built in Birmingham at a time when public finances, politics, public mood and circumstances were all right for it to happen. He didn’t manage the same thing in the City of London. Public perception of one of the reasons for his early departure from the LSO is a strop over this. The reason the new London Hall was dropped was that public finances, politics and public mood were all against it. There is a limit to Simon Rattle’s influence beyond the conductor’s podium. He ought to be bright enough to realise that.
There may be a limit, but that shouldn’t stop one from trying to do a good thing, which is what both of those efforts were.
Sure, but when you don’t get your own way in the City of London and then leave early in a strop – it doesn’t look good. And that is certainly the perception of what happened, amongst players too.