:00:07. > :00:16.Tonight at the Proms. Shadows, nightmares and explosions. Burst of
:00:17. > :00:20.joy, of and pleasure. The Berliner Philharmoniker and their director
:00:21. > :00:34.Sir Simon Rattle play Boulez's Eclat and Beljan's strongest symphony, his
:00:35. > :00:51.seventh. Leitch and Beljan's strongest symphony.
:00:52. > :00:57.Tonight's prom is a typically brilliant piece of programming from
:00:58. > :01:01.the ceaselessly imaginative Simon Rattle, making connections across
:01:02. > :01:05.the decades and the musical aeons. Exactly the sort of orchestral
:01:06. > :01:09.alchemy he's been bringing to the Proms since he was appointed to the
:01:10. > :01:13.world's most famous orchestra in 2002. I'll be talking to Simon
:01:14. > :01:18.Rattle between the two pieces tonight. We start with ten minutes
:01:19. > :01:24.of scintillating imagination from the French composer and conductor
:01:25. > :01:30.Pierre Boulez who died earlier this year. His Eclat, written in 1965.
:01:31. > :01:33.The word means burst in French, it also means explosive fragments,
:01:34. > :01:38.fleeting reflections of light. When we watch Simon Rattle conduct this
:01:39. > :01:42.piece, with 15 players of the Berlin Philharmonic, coming on stage behind
:01:43. > :01:45.me now, they'll be watching him virtually compose the peace in real
:01:46. > :01:52.time using the flickers and glances of his gestures. You know how a
:01:53. > :01:57.lizard moves in unpredictable bursts of energy, intense watch fox stasis?
:01:58. > :02:01.That's what Simon Rattle's hands and eyes will be doing in this piece.
:02:02. > :02:05.The players have to be alive to every explosion, they have to react
:02:06. > :02:08.immediately to this reptilian choreography to know when they
:02:09. > :02:11.should come in, how long they should play for, even in what order they
:02:12. > :02:16.should play the notes in front of them. If that sounds complex that
:02:17. > :02:20.because it is, it's a kind of musical high wire act, a modernist
:02:21. > :02:28.musical circles in which Simon Rattle is the ringmaster. Into the
:02:29. > :02:36.Royal Albert Hall's big topic you can Simon Rattle to conduct Pierre
:02:37. > :02:46.Boulez's Eclat with the Berliner Philharmoniker.
:02:47. > :13:10.APPLAUSE Pierre Boulez's Eclat at the Proms.
:13:11. > :13:13.Simon Rattle conducted 15 players of the Berliner Philharmoniker.
:13:14. > :13:17.Watching that peace requires a completely tentative concentration
:13:18. > :13:20.from all the musicians on Simon Rattle conducting. It's a thrilling
:13:21. > :13:25.demonstration of what can happen when the conductor and ensemble work
:13:26. > :13:31.together in a perfect musical Ceballos is, each responding to the
:13:32. > :13:35.minutest detail. That was happening throughout that peace and that
:13:36. > :13:40.performance from the piano solo at the start to those pools of
:13:41. > :13:43.resonance at the centre of the piece to the high-energy music we heard
:13:44. > :13:47.right at the end. That final moment when time itself seems to be
:13:48. > :13:53.suspended, the final chord, as Simon Rattle told the players. The
:13:54. > :14:02.audience here in a suspended animation. APPLAUSE
:14:03. > :14:11.There's just one more work on Simon Rattle's programme with the Berlin
:14:12. > :14:15.Philharmonic, Mahler's seventh Symphony. Music from another planet?
:14:16. > :14:20.Perhaps, it certainly from another time and on another scale, it was
:14:21. > :14:25.composed in the summers of 1904 and five, lasts 80 minutes and has five
:14:26. > :14:28.movements. Don't be fooled into thinking this music is any less
:14:29. > :14:34.strange and scintillating than the sound world we've just experienced
:14:35. > :14:38.in Pierre Boulez's Eclat. This is Mahler at his most jubilant and
:14:39. > :14:43.grotesque, his most colourful and his most weird and wonderful. It's a
:14:44. > :14:47.piece that's been imprinted on Simon Rattle's musical soul for decades.
:14:48. > :14:57.As he told me during rehearsals earlier today. The Mahler seven as
:14:58. > :15:00.such ghosts in there, both of my predecessor, and of Pierre Boulez,
:15:01. > :15:08.the people I heard conduct this piece. A very memorable performance
:15:09. > :15:13.at the Proms with Pierre... This was the symphony of Mahler Pierre loved
:15:14. > :15:19.the most and felt it was the closest to his music. We talked about it
:15:20. > :15:24.years ago. He said, part of the things that are wonderfully
:15:25. > :15:29.incoherent in the Mahler symphony, the fact it'll suddenly take off
:15:30. > :15:32.like that, and stop as though nothing has happened... That's the
:15:33. > :15:40.kind of gesture which is full in his music. The sound world of this piece
:15:41. > :15:44.is so physical, visceral in a way. Surely in many ways his most
:15:45. > :15:49.experimental piece until the unfinished tenth, maybe. Here's
:15:50. > :15:54.somebody just simply trying to take the idea of music as far as he
:15:55. > :16:03.possibly could. Amazingly ambivalent. Extraordinary, starting
:16:04. > :16:08.from the River Styx. Ending in some kind of bizarre hall of mirrors. The
:16:09. > :16:12.piece is often called the sum of the night, it's full of night music,
:16:13. > :16:16.from the beginning it clear you're on a lake with Mahler in a boat, as
:16:17. > :16:21.he was. He couldn't find anything for the first movement. Having
:16:22. > :16:27.written two of the middle movements. He was on a small boat late at night
:16:28. > :16:31.in the darkness, and the minute he heard the oars hit the water, he
:16:32. > :16:38.heard the beginning of the symphony. With this... It's a water sound.
:16:39. > :16:43.Even though somehow underneath it is the sound of a Funeral March as
:16:44. > :16:47.well. Somehow one is dealing with ghosts throughout the piece. Are
:16:48. > :16:50.there things you can do with his orchestra now, with this piece and
:16:51. > :16:52.this performance, that were possible in the same way when you started
:16:53. > :17:00.out? Absolutely. This is never an easy
:17:01. > :17:06.piece. But there's really, there's an enormous feeling of trust and, I
:17:07. > :17:12.think, we've found now, finally, a shape where you get the whole thing,
:17:13. > :17:16.because it's - the piece can be very bizarre. It's holding it together as
:17:17. > :17:18.well. It's been huge fun as well as very hard work. Simon, thank you.
:17:19. > :17:33.Thank you. Simon Rattle talking to me earlier
:17:34. > :17:37.today. Here he comes to conduct this performance of Mahler's Seventh
:17:38. > :21:19.Symphony at the Proms with the Berlin Philharmonic.
:21:20. > :18:33.MUSIC: Symphony No 7 in E minor by Gustav Mahler
:18:34. > :37:14.MUSIC: Symphony No 7 in E minor by Gustav Mahler
:37:15. > :37:34.Mahler's seventh Symphony at the Proms. Simon Rattle conducted the
:37:35. > :37:42.Berliner Philharmoniker. Jubilation of the most extreme out there,
:37:43. > :37:47.unhinged kind at the end of the symphony's five movements. All of us
:37:48. > :37:51.here at the Royal Albert Hall and I'm sure all of you will be taken
:37:52. > :38:00.thrillingly on that roller-coaster with Simon Rattle and his players,
:38:01. > :38:09.led tonight. Look at this ovation Sir Simon Rattle and the Berliner
:38:10. > :38:16.Philharmoniker are receiving. APPLAUSE
:38:17. > :38:19.This deafening applause is really about Simon Rattle's powerful
:38:20. > :38:25.connection with this Proms audience, something he's had for the last 40
:38:26. > :38:28.years since 1976. That relationship is surely going to go on getting
:38:29. > :38:32.stronger when next year he takes over as music director of the London
:38:33. > :38:48.Symphony Orchestra. APPLAUSE APPLAUSE
:38:49. > :38:52.Simon Rattle back on stage here at the Royal Albert Hall. What a
:38:53. > :38:59.finale, what the final movement that is. Simon Rattle brings the
:39:00. > :39:03.principal, the solo flutist. To his feet. And Jonathan Kelly years old
:39:04. > :39:09.colleague from the city of Birmingham Orchestra many years ago,
:39:10. > :39:14.who came to Berlin. And the whole woodwind section. That wonderful
:39:15. > :39:21.tenor horn player, who started the symphony off in darkness coming
:39:22. > :39:27.night. Leading, 80 minutes later, to the blaze of day. You know that
:39:28. > :39:31.final movement is a crazy kaleidoscope of quotations from
:39:32. > :39:37.operas that Mahler was conducting in Vienna. From Mozart, Wagner, the
:39:38. > :39:49.master singer. Applause for the principal horn.
:39:50. > :39:57.Well, the next outing for the Proms on BBC Four is Sir Simon Rattle
:39:58. > :40:08.bringing the Berlin Philharmonic to their feet, the hotly anticipated
:40:09. > :40:14.Proms debut coming up with Tchaikovsky's for symphony.
:40:15. > :40:18.Correction at the fourth Symphony. With this over the top symphonic
:40:19. > :40:22.victory still surrounding us here, it's good night from us all. Just
:40:23. > :40:25.watch out for those musical nightmares.