I think you have just brilliantly outlined the current definition of a conductor's "success." It's much less about the artistic quality of the recordings, less about the repertoire, and whether or not it gets duplicated, less about being part of a school or tradition. Success is more about the, broadly understood, politics of the position. It's all about the here and now. Simon Rattle epitomizes the modern definition of success in the classical music business. Judged by the standards of the previous generation - the likes of Szell, Ormandy, even Abbado - Rattle does not quite measure up. However, he has been successful both in the local communities, and in the global, increasingly virtual, realm. The Berlin Digital Concert Hall, for example, has been a spectacular achievement, and Rattle has been a major part of it. He has found a way to reinvent himself in this new classical music world and has been one of the more recognizable names in the business, regardless of his artistic achievement, or lack thereof. Speaking of which, to me, Rattle's recordings are a reflection of his temperament rather than lack of skill as a musician. For the most part, I find them decently played, decently recorded, perfectly tepid, unimaginative, and forgettable. But then again, the same can be said of a lot of modern recordings.

An excellent and fair overview of Sir Simon and the industry factors that helped create his myth. I’ll never join Gramophone’s amen choir in proclaiming Rattle the greatest thing since sliced bread, but he has made a few recordings I’m rather fond of. Time to pop over to CT if any from my list made your list.

Thank you , I have signed up to classics today , you are very informative and easy to listen to . Appreciate the effort you put into your channel. Greetings from Brisbane Australia.

I think one reason for Rattle's success was his appearance, with his collar length hair and his informal manner, he was the polar opposite of traditional British conductors such as Sir Adrian Boult. His enthusiasm for modern and contemporary music also appealed to the music establishment, which was still dominated then by high modernists. The music critic fraternity in Berlin was very much split on Rattle's merits, the anti-Rattle critics were known as rattlesnakes.

Rattle is really fun to work with though. In rehearsal he's fantastic. Really knows the music deeply, can communicate his ideas and "fix" a group. Just my two cents

I was living in Birmingham before Rattle arrived and for much of his tenure there. He did oversee the building of Symphony Hall which was a great addition to the city. As for his popularity, he was indeed immensely popular there. When I asked a member of the CBSO (my son's violin teacher at the time) what she thought of Rattle, she summed him up perfectly - "He's a showman".

Boy what a bunch of great, and accurate, points you’ve presented. Shame the world won’t listen

What a great account of an era phenomenon, using a conductor's career as a starting point to elaborate on ever-changing practices of the orchestral recording policies. Next I finally got validated what I found grossly exaggerated in the 1980's by The Gramophone magazine - thank you. But Rattle has meanwhile grown into a fine conductor, what I witnessed in a concert in 2008 with a rather difficult repertoire. The insights like this of yours may be even more valuable than the reviews of the recordings.

The list on ClassicsToday, and your inferences about where Rattle's strengths lie, was really interesting and revealing. I have several of those recordings on your recommendation, and am glad I do. But I suppose that even a conductor's characteristic strengths may fail as often as not: how else to understand whatever it was Rattle thought he was doing with Shostakovich 14?

So as far as orchestras recording their own "stuff," I'm can't help but think of the performances I've come across on KZfaq, sometimes through your guidance, of astonishing quality that weren't released commercially at the time--Szell's Sibelius 4 and Missa Solemnis, for example. It's nice to have someone else sift through and find the diamonds.

I don't know much about Louis Fremaux, Rattle's predecessor in Birmingham. Would love to hear you review the Frémaux Complete CBSO Recordings to get some additional perspective on that ensemble and its history. Thanks!

Interesting stuff as always! I am a classical music neophyte having only come to it during lockdown, but have immersed myself in it pretty wholeheartedly in the last couple of years. So Rattle's career is all history to me. I have never read Gramophone, & think the only Rattle recording I have is the War Requiem in a Britten box, so I am blank canvas on this one. The one thing that puzzles me (as a naive non-musician) with your vilification of SR is this: do you really get to be conductor of the BPO if you are lacking in merit?! Is the "Emperor's New Clothes" syndrome so great in the classical world that continued puff pieces in Gramophone are enough to hoodwink one of the best orchestras in the world? My understanding is that the members of the BPO elect their own leader? Are these world class musos really to be tricked into appointing a musical charalatan? Regardless, I have found your videos a great source of knowledge, & fun (in less than fun times). Thanks for your indefatigable efforts!

Hi David, interesting talk. Would you be doing a talk on the new Jansons BR box?

Thank you for this commentary. What was Rattle doing prior to his assignment at the CBSO?

When you've already done Toscanini, Klemperer, and Stokowski, everyone knows the next logical choice is Simon Rattle!

I agree with the comment that Rattle is better live than on record. I heard him with the CBSO a lot in the 90s and in 20th-century repertoire he was excellent. He also was a superb partner for Alfred Brendel in a cycle of Beethoven PC with the LSO. The recordings I think highlight the worst in his habits, which for me include a habit of over-preparation. I was never a fan of his Mahler; in the late 80s in London we had Tennstedt, Abbado, Rattle and Sinopoli all giving concerts and all of them I found more convincing. I'll be in a very small minority, but when I look back both Sinopoli and Tennstedt's legacies seem overall more interesting than Rattle's so far.

I hear what you are saying. I might add that he did a dynamite Tchaikovsky "Nutcracker" though.

One flower is beautiful, a surfeit of flowers is vulgar. - Albert Einstein

Well, there are always positive surprises. For instance, the new Folk Song album on the Pentatone label with Magdalena Kozena and the Czech Philharmonic!

I heard a story about how a famous conductor was asked why he took such a fast tempo on a piece he recorded. He said he played it that way because the recording engineer told him if he didn't take a faster tempo they wouldn't be able to fit it on one side of the LP. Maybe that's why Gergiev did his 1995 recording of the Nutcracker ballet with such a fast tempo. He could be the first to fit the entire ballet on one CD.

On your point about the very good second tier orchestras and right repertoire I was thinking the Albany Symphony Orchestra does a fine job with Don Gillis's delightful symphonies.

"Follow him around with a microphone and record everything he does!" Oh such wit, great! Yeah, I almost threw up when I learned of Rattle to London and saw the orchestral program. Same old same old. I wonder though whether it's this perpetual cycle of obvious pieces to continue the Battle of Rattle (and most other conductors) to bring the major populace to Classical Music. Lastly, maybe Rattle was best in the early Dawn when he was with the BSO Bournemouth Sym Orch...but I doubt you'd think so, unless that list of ten contains some of those recordings...

Rattle made an excellent Rheingold in Bavaria. And it's not a remake either. So there is hope... :-)

You're right, conductors don't stick around in major posts like they used to. I'm not talking about switching from a provincial orchestra to a world-class ensemble, like Rattle's move from Birmingham to Berlin; I'm talking about tenures with world-class ensembles. Ozawa's 29-year BSO tenure and Levine's 40-year stint at the Met are modern exceptions to this "conductor shuffle" rule. In the recent past Karajan led the Berliners for 35 years, Ormandy led the Philadelphians for 42 years, Szell transformed the Cleveland Orchestra from a solid provincial orchestra to a world-class orchestra during his 24-year tenure. Those days are long gone.

When Simon Rattle first came to prominence in Biormingham, it was clear to me that, whatever his quality, the British would have bally-hooed him to the skies. There was a strong feeling that it was humiliating that there was no Great British Conductor left. That was the twilight age of Bernstein and Abbado, and the time of the rise of Chailly, Tennstedt, Slatkin and so on. Everyone came to London and was acclaimed, everyone except natives. There was a lot of underlying bitterness about it, which came out in the hounding of Franz Walser-Most. I don't know whether he was as bad as they said, but the press and the musical world joined together into as perfect a lynch mob as I have ever seen. When Rattle came out, the headlines were, literally, variants on "At last! A Great British Conductor!" He may have played up to it, but he would have been cast into it whether he did or not. Incidentally, have you ever read Alice McVeigh's All Risks Musical? It is as delightful as any of your videos, and it confirms in detail your picture of the London orchestral scene.

Quantity rather than quality. Today there are approximately 180 Beethoven Symphony sets. Nearly 60 years ago, there were about 10% of that number, but the interpretative range was quite wide. Today the range does not seem to be very much wider.

Just been listening to his Rachmaninov 2 with the LAPO. A very early recording but, really, this could be anyone’s Rachmaninov 2.

I found your Insider talk especially interesting in that there emerged the suspicion that Rattle may tend to get better results in music that involves voices along with the orchestra. I wonder if it doesn’t engage him more completely. That’s probably a topic for someone who knows him personally.

Rattle far better 'live' than on disc. His recordings seem over rehearsed and as Gramophone very politely said of his Beethoven cycle, they remain a work in progress ! He brought the BPO to London to play the Sibelius cycle and the band came alive at last. The studio recordings were pallid in comparison.. He is best at contemporary music, Turnage, Ades, Duttilleux etc. Some ex members of the National Youth Orchestra in UK who have gone on to professional careers still say he has remained there favourite conductor to work with, but it's probably true he hasn't got anything 'new' to say on disc at least, of the mainstream classical repertoire.

You forgot to mention the Portsmouth Sinfonia, one of Britain's finest orchestras.

Simon Rattle is just about the same age as me. I first saw him live when we were twenty-one. Then I thought he was great; The Gramophone said so. He was fresh and modern. In addition to the CBSO he conducted big London orchestras and, I may say, he looked so much better than Louis Fremaux who I'd seen conducting the CBSO. That hair; he must be good! He seemed 'bigger' than the CBSO and did indeed seem to improve it. The Gramophone said so anyway. As we've grown older, I've long stopped reading The Gramophone and am usually disappointed by Sir Simon's recordings. Possibly the two are linked. The first recording that really made me think was Mahler's 5th in Berlin. The critics seemed to like it; many of them, anyway. What were they listening to? I know it can be the graveyard of many an otherwise great conductor but were the critics giving him the benefit of the very big doubt? He's a fine conductor, he really is, but I'm afraid he's been found out. That is, there are many other fine conductors touring this world.

The jet-setting conductors such as Bernstein, Dorati, Masur, Kubelik, Mackerras, C. Davis, Boulez, Haitink, Previn, and Abbado (if it is March it is Munich and if it is May it is Montreal) pass away and the older ones still around like Ozawa, Mehta, Muti, and Barenboim get into the age in travel is more difficult than conducting. We find that the music schools are turning out huge numbers of classical musicians so that there are far more good orchestras. Elite conductors have lagged. I remember seeing a Beethoven symphony cycle in which Rafael Kubelik conducted nine different orchestras (LSO, Concertgebouw, Berlin Phil, Israel Phil, Boston, Orchestre de Paris, Vienna Phil, Cleveland Orchestra, and the Bavarian Radio Symphony... can you imagine anyone doing that now? That misses two orchestras that he had conducted before in Chicago and Prague. Of course Beethoven wrote only nine symphonies, so that rules out the Philadelphia Orchestra if only by chance. Rattle fit the bill for conductor-oriented critics at Gramophone who wanted another Toscanini, Szell, Karajan, or Bernstein when there was none. With the ratio between excellent musicians and conductors so high as it was, someone was going to stand out. It may be more fun to give panning reviews, as of movies (on one certifiable stinker I wrote that the fecal flick was best appreciated drunk, on drugs, or with the assistance of a low IQ)... but one needs to write glowing reviews on occasion so that one is not seen as a pure cynic.

I know recordings are your topic here, but Symphony Hall in Bham wouldn’t be there without Rattle. It is a great asset nationally as well as locally and beats anything London (where I live and often sing) has to offer. Also worth pointing out that the Berlin players, who are not easily fooled, voted to extend his contract to a total of 18 years with the orchestra.

Rattle rattles most of the time. I could never take him seriously. How in the world did he get the Berlin Philharmonic and still maintain it.

Why did Berlin choose him over Barenboim, Muti or Chailly? I would have preferred Muti...

He is leaden but easy to follow.

OK, now let's see Norrington's top 10! ;-)

Having grown up in the UK, all my discovery of classical music was filtered through the Rattle Myth and I've seen him live many times, with a handful of very fine live performances (one particularly fine late night concert of Debussy and Wagner springs to mind). I'm not sure what happened but his conductorship of the Berlin Phil was musically a mess, though he may done some good extra-musical work. None of the recordings or the live performances I've heard have worked. They don't seem to gel properly - possibly because his core Germanic rep as you Dave said aren't strong. I recall one particularly painful Brahms 2 at the Proms that had me raging at how poor the Berlin Phil sounded. And then he came back to London to hysterically hyperbolic fanfare, only to leave after a few years because he didn't get his concert hall and because of Brexit. If he was even half the conductor Gramophone proclaim him to be, then perhaps I could forgive him but as it stands no

I fail to understand why another German orchestra would want to hire him given his lack of affinity with the Austro-German repertoire. Ps: CBSO musicians hotshots....😂😂😂 Seriously, folks!

I’m afraid I don’t hear what’s great about him. He’s competent, and that’s about it.

Do the orchestra players get royalties for the recordings? If so, I am all for more recordings--I want musicians to get paid!

It's a sad state of affairs when when indifferent recordings are released by the lorry load. I'm not worried though; if I don't like it I won't buy it. In 'mainstream' repertoire, most of my choices are more or less established anyway. As for Rattle, I saw him a lot when I was a student in Birmingham and attended his concerts with a more cultured friend who got me into orchestral music. Rattle seemed to embrace the opportunity to play the 'workhorses' regularly and also introduce more challenging work. He was learning and gaining experience. The audience in Birmingham seemed really quite sophisticated. In fact, I seem to remember he gave that as a reason for turning down Los Angeles. Neeme Jarvi was around a lot too! As somebody else has said, Rattle's recordings often seem overly fussy and analytical. He's better live. I still contend he has an identifiable style though, whether you like it or not. I'm pretty confident I could spot him in blindfold tests of recordings I hadn't heard before. Does he deserve 'superstar' status? No. But then who does?

I believe Rattle was capable of very great conducting 40 years ago or so. I find him much less convincing these days.

Not a fan of Rattle at all. I'd have a difficult time coming up with a top ten list.

I've never understood why Simon Rattle isn't unloading trucks for a living.

I always thought his Mahler 7th with BMSO was one of the more convincing recordings of this problematic work. It's over 20 years old so it has probably been supplanted by better ones, but I enjoy it nonetheless.