Simon Rattle Conducts the Berlin Philharmonic BBC Proms


Simon Rattle Conducts the Berlin Philharmonic

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Tonight at the Proms. Shadows, nightmares and explosions. Burst of

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joy, of and pleasure. The Berliner Philharmoniker and their director

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Sir Simon Rattle play Boulez's Eclat and Beljan's strongest symphony, his

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seventh. Leitch and Beljan's strongest symphony.

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Tonight's prom is a typically brilliant piece of programming from

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the ceaselessly imaginative Simon Rattle, making connections across

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the decades and the musical aeons. Exactly the sort of orchestral

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alchemy he's been bringing to the Proms since he was appointed to the

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world's most famous orchestra in 2002. I'll be talking to Simon

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Rattle between the two pieces tonight. We start with ten minutes

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of scintillating imagination from the French composer and conductor

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Pierre Boulez who died earlier this year. His Eclat, written in 1965.

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The word means burst in French, it also means explosive fragments,

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fleeting reflections of light. When we watch Simon Rattle conduct this

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piece, with 15 players of the Berlin Philharmonic, coming on stage behind

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me now, they'll be watching him virtually compose the peace in real

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time using the flickers and glances of his gestures. You know how a

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lizard moves in unpredictable bursts of energy, intense watch fox stasis?

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That's what Simon Rattle's hands and eyes will be doing in this piece.

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The players have to be alive to every explosion, they have to react

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immediately to this reptilian choreography to know when they

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should come in, how long they should play for, even in what order they

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should play the notes in front of them. If that sounds complex that

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because it is, it's a kind of musical high wire act, a modernist

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musical circles in which Simon Rattle is the ringmaster. Into the

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Royal Albert Hall's big topic you can Simon Rattle to conduct Pierre

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Boulez's Eclat with the Berliner Philharmoniker.

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APPLAUSE Pierre Boulez's Eclat at the Proms.

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Simon Rattle conducted 15 players of the Berliner Philharmoniker.

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Watching that peace requires a completely tentative concentration

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from all the musicians on Simon Rattle conducting. It's a thrilling

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demonstration of what can happen when the conductor and ensemble work

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together in a perfect musical Ceballos is, each responding to the

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minutest detail. That was happening throughout that peace and that

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performance from the piano solo at the start to those pools of

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resonance at the centre of the piece to the high-energy music we heard

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right at the end. That final moment when time itself seems to be

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suspended, the final chord, as Simon Rattle told the players. The

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audience here in a suspended animation. APPLAUSE

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There's just one more work on Simon Rattle's programme with the Berlin

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Philharmonic, Mahler's seventh Symphony. Music from another planet?

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Perhaps, it certainly from another time and on another scale, it was

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composed in the summers of 1904 and five, lasts 80 minutes and has five

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movements. Don't be fooled into thinking this music is any less

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strange and scintillating than the sound world we've just experienced

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in Pierre Boulez's Eclat. This is Mahler at his most jubilant and

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grotesque, his most colourful and his most weird and wonderful. It's a

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piece that's been imprinted on Simon Rattle's musical soul for decades.

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As he told me during rehearsals earlier today. The Mahler seven as

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such ghosts in there, both of my predecessor, and of Pierre Boulez,

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the people I heard conduct this piece. A very memorable performance

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at the Proms with Pierre... This was the symphony of Mahler Pierre loved

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the most and felt it was the closest to his music. We talked about it

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years ago. He said, part of the things that are wonderfully

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incoherent in the Mahler symphony, the fact it'll suddenly take off

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like that, and stop as though nothing has happened... That's the

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kind of gesture which is full in his music. The sound world of this piece

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is so physical, visceral in a way. Surely in many ways his most

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experimental piece until the unfinished tenth, maybe. Here's

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somebody just simply trying to take the idea of music as far as he

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possibly could. Amazingly ambivalent. Extraordinary, starting

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from the River Styx. Ending in some kind of bizarre hall of mirrors. The

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piece is often called the sum of the night, it's full of night music,

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from the beginning it clear you're on a lake with Mahler in a boat, as

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he was. He couldn't find anything for the first movement. Having

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written two of the middle movements. He was on a small boat late at night

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in the darkness, and the minute he heard the oars hit the water, he

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heard the beginning of the symphony. With this... It's a water sound.

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Even though somehow underneath it is the sound of a Funeral March as

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well. Somehow one is dealing with ghosts throughout the piece. Are

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there things you can do with his orchestra now, with this piece and

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this performance, that were possible in the same way when you started

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out? Absolutely. This is never an easy

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piece. But there's really, there's an enormous feeling of trust and, I

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think, we've found now, finally, a shape where you get the whole thing,

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because it's - the piece can be very bizarre. It's holding it together as

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well. It's been huge fun as well as very hard work. Simon, thank you.

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Thank you. Simon Rattle talking to me earlier

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today. Here he comes to conduct this performance of Mahler's Seventh

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Symphony at the Proms with the Berlin Philharmonic.

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MUSIC: Symphony No 7 in E minor by Gustav Mahler

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MUSIC: Symphony No 7 in E minor by Gustav Mahler

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Mahler's seventh Symphony at the Proms. Simon Rattle conducted the

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Berliner Philharmoniker. Jubilation of the most extreme out there,

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unhinged kind at the end of the symphony's five movements. All of us

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here at the Royal Albert Hall and I'm sure all of you will be taken

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thrillingly on that roller-coaster with Simon Rattle and his players,

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led tonight. Look at this ovation Sir Simon Rattle and the Berliner

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Philharmoniker are receiving. APPLAUSE

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This deafening applause is really about Simon Rattle's powerful

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connection with this Proms audience, something he's had for the last 40

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years since 1976. That relationship is surely going to go on getting

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stronger when next year he takes over as music director of the London

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Symphony Orchestra. APPLAUSE APPLAUSE

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Simon Rattle back on stage here at the Royal Albert Hall. What a

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finale, what the final movement that is. Simon Rattle brings the

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principal, the solo flutist. To his feet. And Jonathan Kelly years old

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colleague from the city of Birmingham Orchestra many years ago,

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who came to Berlin. And the whole woodwind section. That wonderful

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tenor horn player, who started the symphony off in darkness coming

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night. Leading, 80 minutes later, to the blaze of day. You know that

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final movement is a crazy kaleidoscope of quotations from

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operas that Mahler was conducting in Vienna. From Mozart, Wagner, the

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master singer. Applause for the principal horn.

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Well, the next outing for the Proms on BBC Four is Sir Simon Rattle

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bringing the Berlin Philharmonic to their feet, the hotly anticipated

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Proms debut coming up with Tchaikovsky's for symphony.

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Correction at the fourth Symphony. With this over the top symphonic

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victory still surrounding us here, it's good night from us all. Just

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watch out for those musical nightmares.

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