Simon Rattle: The Making of a Maestro

Simon Rattle is the British conductor who conquered the world.

Simon...

Rattle!

From all my musicians and myself, we send you our love. Bless you.

From opera to oratorio,

early music to modernism,

Rattle has always led from the front.

If you just watch him, you can tell he's a great conductor.

He is both a master, and, at the same time,

he has the openness of a child.

His ears are enormous, like an elephant!

And his genius is his sympathy with all the players in front of him.

He has been a cultural dynamo in cities from Birmingham to Berlin.

This is a conducted tour of Simon Rattle's 60th year.

'It's actually... What bargain do you make with the devil?'

APPLAUSE

Sir Simon Rattle is the music director and chief conductor

of the orchestra many consider the ultimate classical music machine -

the Berlin Philharmonic.

Berlin is a city on the faultline of history.

Largely destroyed at the end of the Second World War,

divided for more than a generation by the Berlin Wall,

a towering, grey symbol of the Cold War,

and over the last quarter of a century,

rebuilt and re-established as capital of one Germany.

When I first used to come here,

people would say, "Oh, the saxophone player,

"he's coming from Germany to here." They didn't say,

"He's coming from Frankfurt." Because it was such an island.

It's a very different shared history,

and I wonder what we would be like, tested to that degree.

I wouldn't be very optimistic.

The nearest to tyranny my generation has gone through

is Margaret Thatcher. HE LAUGHS

We've led a very protected life!

Rattle is on his way to the home of his orchestra,

the Philharmonie, purpose built in the 1950s, hard up against

the Berlin Wall on the Western side,

a striking Cold War political statement.

Just by the Phil, there was the East and here is the West.

That was no-man's-land.

I can just about remember, but only just.

It makes no sense, so it's hard to keep in the mind.

Rattle has always pushed the boundaries of music

and this evening he is due to conduct a staged version

of Bach's St John Passion -

one of the masterpieces of church music

that some people consider too sacred to be dramatised.

CHORAL SINGING

This is Germany, everything is sacred here,

so you can always upset some people.

But, certainly, the whole idea of staging a Bach Passion was very hard.

It took two years to persuade the orchestra,

with still some people begging me not to do it.

THEY SPEAK IN GERMAN

For a lot of people, it is a holy piece,

where you are supposed to stand and sing, as in a concert.

Rattle's controversial vision for the Passion involves orchestra,

choir and soloists all acting out the Gospel story

on the stage of the Philharmonie.

The orchestra were quite nervous of what they'd been asked to do,

um, and Simon has got great daring

and never seemed to panic about sort of negative feedback he got,

and really created something that went into the piece in a much

deeper way than normal.

He took something so sacred

that people were afraid of touching,

and said, actually, not only is nothing sacred,

but the very attempt to grasp it is the noblest thing we can do.

If you've never heard this, you are completely unprepared.

It changes your life.

'It was a good argument to have.

'I'm glad we didn't back down, because it has brought the orchestra

'and the singers together in a way

'that almost nothing else does, because it gives them'

the right level of responsibility, which is almost everything.

'Simon is not one of those conductors who is into

'the contest of wills.

'It's not me versus you and I win, cos I have the stick!

'Simon genuinely is interested in the possibility of democracy,

'and he has this incredible sense of, "What's the best way

'"to get a whole group of people to have'

"an amazing moment of discovery together?"

You can sing in the chorus, you can be a soloist, you can be

a musician from the orchestra, we are all the same to him.

'If Bach doesn't teach you humility, kind of, nothing will.'

Our world divides into people

who are supremely confident,

and those who have doubts every day.

'And I'm on the doubts-every-day team.

'Probably just as well. It means you don't take too much for granted.

'But sometimes it makes it... Well, of course it makes it hard.

'This is a hard profession, and it doesn't get any easier,

'you have to get used to that and you have to do the best you can

'and realise that that is the best you can do.'

APPLAUSE

The music pours out of him.

But that wouldn't work if it wasn't for the integrity,

the personality, the chemistry that goes on when Simon Rattle's about.

Working with Simon is intriguing, because he is both a master,

and at the same time, he has the openness of a child.

I've sung this role many times in concert performances.

I thought I knew the St John Passion.

But he wants me to listen to it differently.

SINGING IN GERMAN

CHORAL SINGING

He loves fresh interpretations.

He always gives us the feeling, the world has to hear this music,

and the world has to see us doing this piece.

He seems to be in a perpetual state of wonder.

He knows what he wants, that's very clear,

but he also loves working in the moment with what is in front of him.

With this type of staging, there was even more emotions going on,

not only from the performance,

but also from the people in the audience.

It didn't necessarily have to be about their relationship with

Jesus or religion, but it was all about actually human beings,

about their lives - they all left the hall with tears in their eyes.

He's wonderful.

I think he's wonderful.

I'm really astonished, this is just amazing.

I was really impressed. I thought the singers were talking to me.

It was great, this was really a privilege.

Of course, it was very British!

# Sie liebt dich, yeah, yeah, yeah... #

Simon Rattle was born and grew up in Liverpool.

There's a kind of narrative I'm supposed to give, isn't there?

About the Beatles, yeah, and swinging Liverpool and all that stuff,

and having a house near Penny Lane,

which actually we did,

going to The Cavern, which actually I didn't...

And, look, the peculiar thing is, there was

so much going on in Liverpool at the time, that it was actually

kind of possible to miss most of that.

He came from a very musical and supportive family,

and one of the first things that he did was to learn to read scores.

And then he would put on little concerts at home, where

everybody was assigned a percussion instrument and had to play along.

'When I was 15, I heard Liverpool Philharmonic

'in their ongoing Mahler cycle.'

I suppose that was such a powerful, life-changing event for me.

I can remember everything about the three or four days around it,

just because it was as though it had been tattooed onto my skin.

'And it sounds tremendously ridiculous and pretentious

'and over the top,

'but all the colours of the flowers seemed brighter -

'from that moment on, I wasn't going to be the same.'

And I would certainly put that at the centre of why I became a conductor.

His natural affinity with music is, basically, shall we say, God-given.

Simon was already, at 19, winning competitions

and conducting orchestras. The opportunities came so young.

After he won a conducting competition at the seaside

in Bournemouth in 1974,

he was appointed assistant conductor of the Bournemouth Sinfonietta.

This wonderful chamber orchestra that no longer exists -

what they must have had to have put up with!

Together, they toured the south coast

and he had his first experiences with opera at Glyndebourne.

There was a point where in 14 days, I conducted 20 concerts with them.

And...oh, God, they must have been terrible!

His breakthrough came two years later

with his appointment as assistant conductor

of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in Glasgow.

He was 22 years old.

Are there any special problems, do you think,

in conducting a major orchestra when you are so young?

Well, the first problem is that however old or young you are,

if you are under 40, you are still a young conductor,

and therefore perhaps slightly suspect!

I was utterly not ready for it, but, I mean, looking back...

..I do wonder, who is ready to start conducting?

There's this wonderful thing in a Woody Allen film where he says,

"You know, actually I'm one of the world's greatest lovers,

"but normally I only get to practise it on my own."

And it's a rather similar thing, because, actually,

without doing it, you don't know how to do it!

And so where do you practise?

I couldn't find an orchestra in my bedroom,

however hard I waved a baton at the mirror.

The BBC job in Glasgow, I conducted so much

and I was given the opportunity to litter the floor with mistakes,

and what an incredible privilege,

to have so many rough edges knocked off, so fast.

It was tough. I can remember thinking, you know,

if this is really what it's like, this is no place for me.

It's actually...

..what bargain do you make with the devil?

'As a young musician, you have to sort out really who you are,

'and is the musician the same person as the everyday person,

'can they be linked together?

'Are you always going to be Jekyll and Hyde?'

Conductors are the last autocrats left.

I hope, actually, that the day of the autocrat is over for us.

It's much easier for me to have a cheerful relationship.

'What percentage of Jekyll

'and what percentage of Hyde there is, God only knows.'

'You have to see what you are, and you also have to decide,

'what is music to you?

'Does music mean life?

'Which is dangerous.

'Or can you really decide,'

"OK, I have a life,

"of which music is an incredibly enriching part"?

And I think one of my faults is that I can often love music to death.

It's a lovely way to go!

As for all great orchestras,

touring for the Berlin Philharmonic is important and demanding.

Rattle and the orchestra have just arrived in Taiwan.

In the capital city, Taipei,

a vast metropolis of more than seven million people,

the orchestra are scheduled to give two performances here

at the ornate National Concert Hall,

and, naturally, expectations are riding high.

There is a kind of passion for classical music here,

which is so unusual, and it has to be cultural,

because unlike in mainland China,

classical music is continuous here.

Obviously, Mao Tse-tung stopped it in the most dramatic and brutal way.

Here, it stayed, and it's one of the things that makes them

different from the mainland, of which they are very proud.

And they are a particularly thoughtful island.

They know this can be lost, they know it could be destroyed.

Maybe we take it too much for granted.

Here, they know what can happen,

and so they've grabbed on to it with a passion which is very,

very moving, and you really feel it, playing to them.

Here in the National Concert Hall of Taiwan, there's only going

to be time for one rehearsal before tonight's concert.

So, conductor and orchestra have to make every second count.

Today, we needed to rehearse quite hard,

because you have to get used to a very different, very bright hall.

So, sometimes it's useful,

particularly on the first day of a tour,

when people haven't played for a few days.

It's part of our job.

All that's important is that the evening really works.

Simon has brought this orchestra incredible presence.

If you just watch him, you can tell he's a great conductor -

he's in the music, he's leading the orchestra, he's passionate,

his expression is fantastic,

he has the genius of the music inside him, and also

the ability to express it through his hands, his body and his face.

I admire most his absolute concentration

and awareness of everything which happens,

maybe far away in another part of the orchestra.

His ears are enormous, like an elephant!

He brings dedication to work and

to the work, the piece that we play.

He brings musical inspiration from his knowledge

and from his understanding and a fantastic enthusiasm for music.

Tonight's concert will be relayed live to a big screen

set up in the square outside the concert hall,

and tens of thousands of people are expected to turn up.

It's nearly showtime, the square is packed full to capacity

and inside the hall, the concert is sold out.

FRENCH HORN TUNES UP

APPLAUSE It's funny, though, we're so used to this

bass clapping of the German audiences...

HE CLAPS DEEPLY But here, it's...

Yeah, but it's - WHAM!

It's fantastic, it has its own fantastic spirit.

Come on. Have fun, you guys.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

Well, the thing about the audiences here is that, actually,

they're very sophisticated.

And there might be places where you would be

a little bit loath to take a programme of Boulez's Notations

and Bruckner's 7th Symphony, but not in Taiwan.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

I'm thrilled to be able to bring this to them,

and in a way, it's what we do.

We want to take a great big Austrian romantic piece

and one of the greatest works written in the last 30 years.

It is characteristic of what we're trying to do.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

As soon as the concert finishes,

Rattle and the players make their way outside,

where the people of Taipei are waiting.

-Don't leave me alone, you bastards!

-No, no, no.

Going out onto that stage afterwards to meet our audience,

it was the most incredible experience.

The way they just go crazy at the end.

CHEERING

'We came out of the concert and there were 40,000 people outside there.'

From all my musicians and myself, we send you our love. Bless you.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

I was standing directly next to Simon, and he said,

in all this noise, he said,

"Oh, now I know what Robbie Williams must feel like!"

HE SPEAKS MANDARIN

For them, it's still surprising to see one of those "long noses",

as they say in Chinese, to see somebody speak Chinese.

My wife is Chinese,

and I learned some Chinese to survive in my family.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

For us, we know it's a privilege when we go out there

and we see all those guys.

The amount of applause can be a wonderful thing,

but you'd better not believe it.

You'd better not believe it too much.

And you always realise that there's always going to be

differing opinions.

But every now and then, you can say, "OK.

"That was a moment we really did our best."

"Maybe we deserve some of this."

Before he faces the orchestra, Rattle spends hours alone

in the conductor's study at the Philharmonie, working on the score.

It's extraordinary - every other art form,

you can look at a painting and it's there,

you can read a book and it's there.

This requires people to interpret it.

A relatively simple score, I can hear immediately in my head.

Sometimes, there's just nothing for it but to check it yourself.

Wagner wrote it for such a huge string group.

I just have to make sure which version...

..of this kind of extraordinary bit of clouds.

HE PLAYS

That's unbelievable, because all the parts cross over each other,

so you really do get the idea of clouds.

Ever since I was a kid, I've had an absolute non-stop soundtrack

of music going through my head. I thought everybody did,

and I was rather stunned to realise later in life

that that's actually not normal, but it never stops.

Three, and they're playing the long notes. That's confusing.

I used to find it hard to go to sleep with the music in there,

and I remember having to kind of bash my head backwards

and forwards almost to kind of...

at nights, to try and get it out of the ear.

You get a kind of little fricassee of Brahms.

And a bit of the music from Harry Potter.

It's utterly undenominational.

It's an equal opportunities barrel of garbage going on up there.

Music has the possibility of saying to people, "You're not alone.

"Somebody else understands - there's somebody else has felt this.

"This interprets where you are in the world."

Another life, I could have imagined being an actor.

And, of course, in some ways, you are an actor doing this.

# As I wandered down a street

# As used to be in Brummagem

# I knowed nobody I did meet

# They've changed their faces in Brummagem... #

The city that really made Simon Rattle's reputation

was Birmingham, where he arrived in 1980,

at the age of 25, and fired up with enthusiasm.

It's a vocation. It's crazy.

It's like Werner Herzog pushing a ship over a mountain.

You have to do it, because you are desperate to do it.

Otherwise, don't bother, because it's...

It's tough. It's like sleeping outside.

It's wonderful, but it's cold at night as well.

When he left 18 years later, Birmingham was transformed,

and he was a household name.

-Simon Rattle.

-Simon Rattle.

-Simon Rattle.

-Simon.

-Simon.

-He's a highly-thought-of conductor.

Simon Rattle.

Now, he has returned to the city for the day,

to rehearse for a benefit concert with the orchestra

he took to world status, the CBSO -

the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.

It was the first musical family, really, I had,

and it still feels like it.

They were telling me yesterday, there are a few people who were here

before I came, and they call them the "pre-Rattleites".

'There's such a lot of history.

'We built this place together, and we build what the orchestra is.'

Hush, hush, hush.

'When I came here, I was 25, and lots of people were 25,

'and we put it together...

'together, if you can say that in English.

'The orchestra had lost its principal conductor.

I mean, it was kind of an extraordinary story,

that the manager of the orchestra was also the principal conductor's agent,

and the orchestra had a vote of no confidence in the manager.

The manager stayed and the conductor walked out,

and so they really needed someone to look after them,

and I remember when I came, we started working.

They said, "Oh, God, we're just so happy to say,

"'Are we going to play this short or long,'

"or, 'On the string or off the string,'

"or, 'When are we going to breathe on these chords?'"

Just all this, what I'd call,

the dental hygiene of the conductor and orchestra's relationship.

Yeah. Now, can I take the violins, this orchestra, one before 23?

The long notes, could you use very, very little bow,

so we're in a good place for the off-the-string thing?

'Almost a year ago, I became principal conductor

'of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra,'

and the BBC came up with the rather alarming idea

of filming our first day's work together.

HE SINGS A SEQUENCE

And so the B-flat particularly is light.

I thought it would be a good opportunity

to show you how a conductor and an orchestra work together

'to prepare a performance.'

Yes, stop. Yeah, stop, please.

'They wanted to put themselves back on track.

'God knows why they thought I could be the person to do it,

'because I had so much to learn.'

So we hear the difference. OK.

He's been described as one of the world's most brilliant conductors,

while remaining an impossibly, unbelievably normal chap.

Of course, the conductor is the only person who doesn't play

wrong notes, and who nobody actually hears.

The only thing that I could say in my defence is -

conductors only really start becoming halfway competent

by the time they're 60.

So I've got a few more years to go.

Together, he and the CBSO will develop

until it's rightly recognised as a world-class orchestra.

He was conducting every work for the first time,

and he was making experiments with them,

and as a similarly young man, I was so nervous with everybody,

and I just watched him open-mouthed

as, even at the age of 25, he could command the room.

And this is something he's carried with him all his life.

He set a model when he came to Birmingham.

The '60s and '70s, music directors of orchestras were flying

in and out. The age of the jumbo jet,

so you weren't a proper conductor

unless you were in and out of a jumbo jet every other week.

MUSIC DROWNS INSTRUCTIONS

He lived in Birmingham.

He spent an enormous amount of time

seriously working with the orchestra,

and without many changes in terms of personnel,

turned them into something very special,

and it's an example of the famous phrase

that there's no such thing as bad orchestras,

there's only bad conductors.

All the players were behind what Simon was trying to do,

and were prepared to work their socks off

until the last minute of rehearsal.

But since we were never going to sound like the Berlin Philharmonic,

and the orchestra had always this lightness on its feet,

we decided basically that we would make ourselves into

the best white wine we could possibly be.

Simon Rattle, this highly distinguished conductor,

who really could have the choice of any orchestra in the world,

but he chooses the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.

Rattle's belief in the potential of his orchestra,

and the growing recognition that these players needed

a new concert hall worthy of their status,

would have a profound effect.

The redevelopment of Birmingham in the 1980s

is due to Simon being at the CBSO.

The creation of tens of thousands of jobs,

transforming the cityscape through the arts,

this all comes down to the regeneration of

the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.

Now, I am not exaggerating.

The car industry had basically collapsed, and they had to say,

"Well, how do we make now a new Birmingham?"

The city fathers realised they have this gift.

They'd got one of those people who can change the world,

and he was literally the best-known figure in Birmingham.

People saw him in the street, didn't bother him,

but, truly, the man in the street, everybody,

everybody, everybody, everybody knew who he was.

Simon Rattle.

Simon Rattle.

Simon Rattle.

Rattle? Simon Rattle.

It took more than five years and £160 million

to build Symphony Hall,

one of the most acoustically friendly concert halls in the world,

and the cornerstone of a new Birmingham.

I remembered being together in the room

with the Labour bigwigs and the Conservative bigwigs and saying,

"Look, we'll fight like cat and dog over all kinds of things,

"but where, actually, the future of Birmingham is,

"and the arts and the culture and that, no-one's going to divide us.

"Whoever gets voted in will make the new hall happen,

"because we know this is the only way to change the city."

At last, on June 12th, 1991,

the Queen attended a gala concert

to show off this fantastic orchestra in their shiny new home.

I remember going to the opening at Symphony Hall,

being part of the sheer excitement of that opening, and feeling,

"This is one of the best places

"I have ever encountered

"for music-making."

Some people found it too live.

The phrase "you could hear a pin drop" was actually true.

You could hear a pin drop, and you could hear people coughing

and so on, but I think Simon knew immediately

how to manage the hall,

and just made the most of this incredible liveness and vividness.

It was just a moment that transformed Birmingham's status

in the whole world of music,

and it transformed the orchestra's status as well,

because now they had a room

in which they sounded really, really wonderful.

But all this phenomenal success would bring its own problems.

There was a time in the latter part of Simon's period in Birmingham

where we were so closely associated as orchestra and conductor

that he was both the orchestra's greatest strength

and also its greatest weakness.

It became very difficult to promote the qualities of the orchestra,

which were indeed very fine, without Simon.

Well, it's been a dramatic week for the orchestra,

a week in which its music director, Sir Simon Rattle,

announced he's quitting the post.

He's a hard act to follow,

and a figure dear to the hearts of the Birmingham public.

Just ask anyone in the city centre to name a conductor.

Sir Simon Rattle, I think.

And he's got great hair.

Wonderful chap.

I'm not a classical music person myself.

I do know he's got a very good reputation.

It was the right time to leave, so that they could then...

they could go further,

because there's a limit to what one person can give an orchestra.

When I went back to do the benevolent fund concerts,

within about five minutes, we could have almost laughed,

thinking, "Oh, this is so easy,"

because, basically, we're still speaking the same language.

Some things get better with time, and it...

Let's hope...let's hope it's not all just a kind of downward spiral.

Sometimes, all of us wish we had the airy confidence

of when we started, but that's not always to be.

HE SINGS ALONG VIGOROUSLY

But there is something in a little bit of experience. I think, "OK...

"..this landmine I've already stepped on,

"and I lost a limb because of that.

"Maybe this time, I'll walk round it."

'What's interesting, you know, you can be in your 50s and 60s

'and there's still plenty more landmines to discover.'

It's less.

# Dah-da... #

And down. Yeah. And it's not a different tempo.

And the CBSO has, I must say,

I'm so proud to have been involved with them,

and I'm so happy that they're in such wonderful shape

and have kept their own particular

..Sauvignon blanc colour.

# I always wanted to waltz in Berlin

# Waltz in Berlin

# Waltz in Berlin

# The way things look, we'll be waltzing right in... #

For more than a century, the Berlin Philharmonic have been

at the pinnacle of German music-making,

so when the players elected a British conductor

to lead them at the threshold of the new century...

HE SPEAKS GERMAN

..Sir Simon Rattle.

..no-one could have been more surprised than Simon Rattle himself.

'Sir Simon Rattle has been chosen as the new chief conductor

'of the Berlin Philharmonic,

'which is widely regarded as the world's leading orchestra.'

Who knows what they wanted?

But I do think they saw that I could expand their repertoire,

and that I had a different view of what their future could be.

I remember some of the players said to me before,

"You won't completely neglect our old favourites, will you?"

Traditionally, the orchestra was famous

for its rich repertoire of classical and romantic music.

They wanted something else, and we'd try and decide together,

"Well, what does an orchestra mean in this new century?"

For his first concert as chief conductor,

Rattle made a bold statement,

asking the Berlin Philharmonic to embrace,

alongside Mahler, the contemporary.

To begin his tenure at Berlin

with a piece by me,

by a young - if I may say that -

British, not German, composer,

and in a certain kind of language,

was certainly a statement, and a very bold statement.

The orchestra found Asyla very, very hard.

I mean, really hard.

It was very tough for an orchestra that is used to dancing their music.

I mean, if you danced a lot of Asyla, you'd break your leg pretty quickly.

I probably allowed myself to push the boat out a bit further

in terms of the structure, because I knew that

something in the way he controls the line of the piece

would bring out aspects I probably wasn't consciously aware of

when I was writing it.

For the new principal conductor of the Berlin Phil

to bring a piece that was based on techno music

to the Philharmonie for his inauguration,

it was typical Simon.

We are, in our understanding, the most famous orchestra in Berlin,

and in the world.

The orchestra is always open

for new ideas,

but you have to convince them.

And you have to make the best with your ideas -

and this is what Simon has done.

I haven't liked ALL the stuff he's brought,

but who likes all the stuff you have to play all the time?

It's just so exciting

and fascinating to see what he does.

As he's always been,

you have to be very steadfast in your beliefs,

and have some kind of human touch

and also an authority,

at the same time.

For the more than a dozen years now,

Rattle has consistently led the Berlin Philharmonic away

from its comfort zone...

..taking the players into the unfamiliar world

of the orchestra pit to explore opera.

You tell a story in a different way,

and that's a difficult thing working with an orchestra

that's not always playing opera.

They don't always realise that you have to make a different sound.

And sometimes, yes, it does have to be ugly,

and sometimes, yes, it does have to be violent.

It's great for an orchestra

which is as sure of itself

as the Berlin Philharmonic,

to have to be so flexible.

Normally, everybody can deliver in orchestral concerts,

but every night a singer is different.

They need a bit more breath,

they need a bit less breath,

and you must be there at their service at every moment.

This orchestra can very easily -

not exactly ignore the conductor -

but they don't need a lot of help

once they know a piece.

But, actually, a few of them said,

"Wow, Puccini? We REALLY need you!"

And it's a matter of making it all balance.

In some ways...

erm...I know I once said that a conductor's like being

a kind of plug - an adapter plug - between the music and the audience,

but, in this, it's more like you're a catcher at the circus.

You have to be ready - "OK, what do they need?"

SOLOIST SINGS

CHORUS SINGS

There is not so many conductors who knows about singing -

what we need - where we need to breathe -

why, suddenly, we slow down,

why are we now suddenly faster?

So, that's the art

of the conductor to let people breathe

and breathe with them.

What is, I think, amazing about him,

that he builds all his strength and all this incredible power he has,

on trust to other people.

So he is not, in a way, the boss who is imposing his rules,

but he really lets everybody feel that they are really good.

I think it's very special for conductors,

because they don't make any sound

and they would love to, as well!

So it must be hard for them.

You know, they want to produce the sound,

and they have only the people to lead.

In the year leading up to his 60th birthday,

Rattle has taken 202 rehearsals for 84 performances

with six different orchestras.

Today it's the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment -

they play all their music on authentic period instruments.

They're rehearsing Joseph Haydn's Creation -

just as it would have been heard

in the late 18th century.

Working with period instruments is very different

from a modern symphony orchestra

but Rattle delights in the sounds that they produce.

Yeah, good.

Just aaah-pah-raa, pa-rah...

We just have to get... OK.

FLUTE PLAYS

Aaah-pah-raa, pa-rah...

'So much of what I'd seen in classical scores,

'I was not hearing.

And the problems I had often had

with really dealing with this music,

were to do with a matter of simply...

What did this mean on the page?

'And a realisation of what we've lost with a lot of modern instruments.'

Take your time over the first note would be beautiful.

No, it's fantastic, it's got all that direction.

It'd be great if it was very stable, within the direction.

You get the feeling as a member of the orchestra

that he can see and hear exactly

what every single member is doing

at any given moment.

I go by for bars and bars without realising

I've been playing from memory.

"Help!" You know?

So it's thrilling

and it's a little dangerous, too.

Even when I sometimes don't entirely see eye to eye

with what Simon wants to do,

there is, nevertheless, that wonderful spark.

Could you make your diminuendo a bit little later, so...

Mm-pa-pa-pa-pa...

Ta-ta-ta-ta...

He really understands the expressive quality of these instruments

and how it relates to the music we play.

I think he's always liked the sound of the wooden flute.

I mean, he was sold on that right at the start,

which was nice for me to hear.

HE SINGS ALONG

Yeah, great. Good. Yeah, good.

The horns, could you be a bit less in 26, and a bit longer?

Pahh-pahh-pahh-pahh...

And could we not go down too much after...

da-da-dut-dut dai-ya pah-pah pa-ra pup-pup-pup?

Over the years, there've been incredible surprises.

I mean, simply unbelievable revelation of how it could sound.

Could we make the first one like, da-da-pup-pup-par-rup-pup

pum-pum-pum-pum...each time,

and then it can be a bit crisper,

and have a bit more character?

It is a bit strange, isn't it?

So, again, yeah, 23.

Three...and...

Simon has a very...

emotional connection with it.

Whatever you're playing with him,

you do get the feeling that this piece of music

matters so much to him

and it's one of his favourite pieces of music.

Simon does trust us, hugely.

He's humble enough to allow us to play

and mould us...

I mean, if he doesn't like it, he's quite capable

of letting us know!

Could you... There is a little bit of excess personality.

Yeah.

Oh, and...because they do this beautiful character,

let's do something else in the third bar.

Let's be a little bit less,

and a little bit less gluey there.

Oh, yeah.

He was completely brilliant the way he rehearsed it -

he knew exactly when to unpick something

in order to put it back together,

and when to leave well alone.

And he just made us feel confident

but at the edge of our seats at the same time.

Legato.

'The orchestra is such an unusual organism anyway.'

Fabulous!

'Is there any other area of life

where so many incredibly skilled people

have to subsume themselves to a greater whole?

I can't really... I can't really think of it.

The Easter Festival in Baden-Baden in the German Black Forest

is one of the Berlin Philharmonic's annual events.

We are in the last three days of the festival.

I have four concerts and two general rehearsals.

You wake up in the morning feeling you're running on empty,

but actually the music really helps.

Yeah, we're knackered.

But it's worth being knackered, if it's good.

And what's the festival for? When everybody else has the holiday,

then we're on parade.

The festival brings visitors to Baden-Baden from across the world,

eager to see artistes of the stature of Rattle and today's soloist,

the superstar violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter,

who has a morning rehearsal with the orchestra.

We've known each other since we were kids,

only she still looks like a kid.

We've never done the Brahms together,

so this will be fascinating,

and it's relatively little time.

But sometimes fast cooking is great, you see.

It keeps the vitamins.

Yeah, I remember when he was also

the young and up-and-coming.

It's very difficult to comprehend that he is turning 60.

I've just turned 50, so...

Time is a strange thing.

Making music is a very interesting conversation,

if it is a good concert, of course.

There are boring concerts, as well!

But, in a good concert, it still has a very fresh and

totally believable emotional message.

Particularly for Sir Simon who is a fresh mentally

and, dare I say, physically - his wife knows better -

but he is just as fresh as the daisy.

He's as innocent, but much better informed,

as he used to be as a younger musician.

It's wonderful to be witness of his development

as a conductor, if I may say.

Because more and more do I realise

when we work together

how much he has an incredibly in-depth understanding of the score.

That gives you really the feeling you can go anywhere,

musically speaking, and he and the orchestra will follow.

APPLAUSE

Simon Rattle has flown to London for the day.

He's been summoned to Buckingham Palace to receive a rare honour -

membership of the Order of Merit from the Queen.

I am in no sense a royalist,

but I have enormous respect for what they do.

I suppose I'm not even sure really what the OM involves

but I did look back at the list and...

..humbled is the word!

By my early 20s I realised, OK,

I seem to have a career here,

much to my surprise.

I'd always meant to go to university.

I remember feeling, "Well, am I only going to be a musician, then?"

What else is there? Could I be anything else?

Could anything...

Even, actually, could anything take the place of music?

And so the idea came that maybe I could take a year

and I simply got in touch with some colleges in Oxford...

I was able to do the three university terms,

and I made myself a promise

that I would not listen to music at all in those weeks,

I would simply just deal with poetry and literature

and everything else.

It was wonderful.

Hello. Nice to see you.

OK, Cheers, guys. See you later.

Her Majesty said, "For goodness' sake don't worry when you're conducting,

"you'll lose an eye."

My eldest son - who is now 30 -

when he was little he used to say something, a lovely phrase...

"I'm very up-cited."

So, actually, it was very up-citing!

Very sweet.

And now I feel a bit like

David Attenborough saying,

"A rather shy little thing here."

To mark the 100th anniversary

of the start of the First World War

a ceremony was held at the military

cemetery near Mons in Belgium.

The music for the event was a special recording,

symbolically bringing together

some of the greatest musicians from Britain and from Germany.

Who is involved with two of the greatest orchestras on the planet -

the London Symphony Orchestra

and the Berlin Philharmonic?

Simon Rattle.

And so players - some whom had never met each other before -

came together and collaborated on a recording which was then

used in the cemetery at Mons.

He chose George Butterworth's Shropshire Lad -

Butterworth died in the trenches,

and I think what Simon Rattle

always wants is to take people on a journey.

Simon manages to make the serious stuff plenty serious,

but, immediately,

the human stuff is everywhere.

And you hear that in the music-making.

His whole body is in it,

And so that sense that music is engaging ALL of you...

not SOME of you...?

Hello!

Bless you, Simon Rattle.

It is one of the most extraordinary professions there is.

PLAYS PIANO

The challenges never stop,

no matter how ever much experience you have.

If you're bored of conducting,

then you're really... You're really in danger.

And so I'm looking forward to...

..the next years.

Somebody said to me, "You know, Simon,

"the really good conductors,

"they only start getting good when they're 65.

"You're no exception, so don't be in a hurry."