When Sir Simon Rattle was young, he played Slavonic Dances by Antonín Dvořák with his father on the piano. “They were instrumental in my decision to pursue music,” he says. Next time he will perform them in Prague as the main guest conductor of the Czech Philharmonic. One of the world’s most famous musicians, whose every visit to the Republic is an event, will become one from the following season. He concluded the contract for five years.
Rattle announced the news this Wednesday in Prague. The Liverpool native will join chief conductor Semjon Byčkov and chief guest conductor Jakub Hrůš from the 2024/2025 season. Unlike him, Rattle’s function will have the attribute “in honor of Rafael Kubelík”. He himself said about the connection with the name of the former chief conductor of the Philharmonic Orchestra from the 20th century. Kubelík’s heirs agreed to this.
“He was my favorite since I first heard him as a fifteen-year-old in Liverpool, when Kubelík came there with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra,” recalls Rattle at the beginning of the 1970s. At that time, the Czech exile had Beethoven’s Ninth on his program. “For the first time I saw what it’s like when the orchestra and the conductor breathe as one body,” recalls the Englishman.
He later attended Kubelík’s rehearsals and saw his famous return to the Prague Spring festival after the fall of communism. In 1990, Kubelík symbolically went there after four decades in exile conducted My homeland by Bedřich Smetana. “Thanks to the intensity and the whole story connected with it, I still have his interpretation tattooed on me,” he mentions.
He never found the courage to approach Kubelík. The Czech conductor died in 1996. Today, Sir Rattle continues his legacy as chief conductor of the Bavarian Orchestra. “There are still players there who remember him. And his spirit lives on there,” sums up why he now wants to pay tribute to him in the Czech Philharmonic as well. “Because he changed my life. This is my way of thanking him,” he adds.
He chooses well
Rattle, the husband of mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená and a long-time promoter of Czech music, became world-famous in the 1980s as chief conductor of the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. He led it for almost two decades. Between 2002 and 2018, he headed the prestigious Berlin Philharmonic, and in recent years he conducted the London Symphony Orchestra. Now active in Bavaria. He has long since become a celebrity that transcends the boundaries of the music world.
Jiří Bělohlávek already wanted to bring him to guest with the Czech Philharmonic when he took over in 2012 and started to return it to world stages. “It took seven years from the first approach, but then it never ended,” adds orchestra director David Mareček, who wishes that five years of Rattle’s hosting “was only the beginning”.
They have planned where the cooperation should go. “However, we want it to develop organically. So that the musicians also say what they would be happy to present and record together. We are sure that it will go in a good direction,” he says.
According to Mareček, Rattle’s career is stellar, but also unspectacular, built on musicality and long-term work with musicians, young people and local communities. “He wouldn’t have to host anywhere anymore. He chooses well where he goes and why,” he emphasizes.
Mareček, who has been the head of the orchestra since 2011, considers his association with the Czech Philharmonic to be the culmination of thirteen years of management work and confirmation of the quality of the players. “We are delighted to have acquired a star of the first magnitude, one of the most famous conductors. The attitude of the musicians at rehearsals and concerts also contributed to this, which made Sir Rattle happy to return,” he says.
Director of the Czech Philharmonic, David Mareček, with conductor Sir Simon Rattle. | Photo: CTK
Different from others
At the press conference, Rattle recalled how he first heard the Czech Philharmonic as an eight-year-old from recordings with Karel Ančerl, released by Supraphon. “Not only because they were cheaper than those from Western firms, so I could afford them out of pocket,” he said.
Specifically, the recordings of the Glagolitic Mass and Taras Bulba Rhapsody by Leoš Janáček, the recording of Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony or less common compositions such as The Spider’s Feast by the French author Albert Roussel and George Gershwin’s Cuban Overture stuck with him. “All of them had a unique sound. When I got to know the orchestra better, I was pleased that it maintained this specificity without sounding old-fashioned. The Czech Philharmonic really does sound different from any other orchestra, which I mean as a compliment,” emphasizes Rattle.
He conducted it for the first time in 2019, when they performed Dvořák’s symphonic poem The Golden Spinning Wheel and Gustav Mahler’s Song of the Earth at the Rudolfinum. The conductor’s wife Magdalena Kožená sang here with the tenor Simon O’Neill. “From the first moment I thought to myself: yes, the composers must have had this sound in mind when they wrote,” Rattle describes why he and Kožena became the resident artists of the Czech Philharmonic’s season in the 2022/2023 season and, among other things, prepared a concert for the 17th anniversary. november
The Englishman claims that he fell in love with the Philharmonic, and that is why he has now confirmed the relationship in writing. “I’m going to ride here as long as I’m welcome here. I’m starting to feel the right to be proud of this orchestra. And that means we’re a family,” he says.
They will perform together twice already this week. At sold-out concerts in the Dvořák Hall of the Rudolfinum, they will perform Rachmaninoff’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 3, played by world-renowned pianist Yuja Wang, and Symphony No. 6 by Anton Bruckner.
Two programs await the Englishman next season. One series of Slavic dances by Antonín Dvořák will be heard at each one, which they will film. The first evening will be completed by Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass, the second by Kurt Weill’s Seven Deadly Sins.
Sir Simon Rattle (69)
British conductor Simon Rattle was born on January 19, 1955 in Liverpool. He became famous for his interpretations of the works of Gustav Mahler and the Second Viennese School, but also for his openness to different genres, emphasis on educational projects, solidarity and the social role of art.
He led the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra from 1980 to 1998, raising the locally important body to world class. From 2002 to 2018, he was music director of the Berlin Philharmonic, with whom he prepared 40 world premieres. He changed their status to a foundation, initiated the creation of the Digital Concert Hall, an educational program and his own record company. He also presented a number of semi-scenic and socially oriented projects in Berlin.
In 2017, he became music director of the London Symphony Orchestra. A few years after Brexit, however, he announced that he would leave the English capital and applied for German citizenship. Since the current season, he has been conducting the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Munich. He has a contract there for five years.
He recorded over 70 titles for the EMI label, now known as Warner Classics. He has won many awards including three Grammys.
Through the classics to Adamek
According to the orchestra’s manager Robert Hanč, Rattle has a contract to dedicate two subscription weeks to the Czech Philharmonic each season, which means six concerts for the public. “However, we are already talking about the fact that it could be three or four weeks. At the same time, there is the possibility of smaller tours, when we might repeat the Prague program in Vienna or other cities. And concert recordings are also planned,” calculates Hanč. On longer trips abroad, the orchestra is usually accompanied by the chief conductor Byčkov.
Rattle is known for a wide range of repertoire from early to contemporary music. In Prague, she wants to present both works that belong to the foundations of the existence of the Czech Philharmonic, as well as compositions that she is not so used to.
From earlier music, he would specifically like to tackle Joseph Haydn, from the 19th century to Robert Schumann and Edward Elgar, and from composers born in the 20th century, he named Witold Lutosławski, Lucian Berio and Olivier Messiaen.
Rattle considers forty-five-year-old Czech native Ondřej Adámek to be one of the most interesting living creators. He presented his composition Where Are You in the world premiere three years ago in Munich. “His music is not played much in Prague. But in order for the orchestra to be able to play it, they must first gain more experience in this regard,” warns Rattle.
“We talked about the latest music for a long time. It is not in the Philharmonic’s tradition to play it,” agrees David Mareček. “Just Ondřej Adámek uses playing techniques and methods that the Czech Philharmonic rarely comes across. Before we get to that, we have to get there through some of the great classics,” concludes the director of the orchestra.
2024-02-07 19:27:27
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