Prague Spring 2021: London Symphony Orchestra & Sir Simon Rattle

Liverpool native Sir Simon Rattle is unquestionably one of the most respected artists on the current music scene.

Conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the Berlin Philharmonic for many years, he first appeared at the Prague Spring back in 1994 when he led the Birmingham ensemble in performances of Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7 and Michael Tippett’s Symphony No. 4. Even by that time he was predicted to have a great future ahead of him, with critics describing him as a phenomenon. When he returned to the festival in 2011 with the Berlin Philharmonic and Mahler’s Symphony No. 6 in A minor – which, incidentally, was the work he performed with the orchestra for their very first concert together – the applause from the audience simply went on and on. As music journalist Petr Veber wrote at the time in Harmonie magazine: “The concert went beyond everything that was and is possible to experience in Prague. It was such an incredible, flawless interpretation of Mahler’s Sixth Symphony – the players, the expression and the mood of the piece; the attentive and perceptive listener could really only just sit there in wonder at the kind of things an orchestra is capable of.”

Which is hardly surprising. As Rattle has said in a number of interviews, it was Mahler, specifically his Symphony No. 2, who influenced him to such a degree; it was his music that made him decide to become a conductor. “It had such a strong influence on me that there was no going back. But it was the same with the Sixth Symphony. I remember exactly where I was sitting, which box it was in Liverpool’s concert hall. I was prepared to spend all my money on recordings with Bernstein, Bruno Walter or Klemper. Anything I could find, really.” (Harmonie, April 2011)
Programme:

Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 6 in A minor “Tragic”

Performers:

London Symphony Orchestra
Sir Simon Rattle – conductor