It was an extraordinary experience to arrive in Berlin at the start of September. Advertising hoardings right across the city were dominated not by pop stars, football players or the latest perfumes-but with the face of Simon Rattle. He was about to commence his (at least ten-year) stint as chief conductor and musical director of the justly-famous Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra with a gala concert on 7th September.
This was tribute not only to Rattle's prodigious musical gifts, but also to his skills as a communicator, as an educator and as a politician manqu?. Back in London, Antonio Pappano began his reign as the Royal Opera House's music director the evening before-and you would have hardly known it.
Simon Rattle was elected as prospective new head of the Berlin Philharmonic on 23rd June 1999. He wrote at once to members of the orchestra, informing them how "thrilled and excited" he was, especially as this was the outcome of a "long and thoughtful democratic process." Unfortunately, Rattle soon found himself in a storm not of his own making.
The city of Berlin has borne a disproportionate burden of German unification and, with accumulated debts estimated at over e20 billion, it is virtually bankrupt. It also continues to support three opera houses and three full-scale symphony orchestras, none of them guaranteed full houses. Consequently, although the artistic standards of the orchestra were still extraordinarily high, the pay and conditions of the players were coming under threat as the multi-party coalition running the city council found it increasingly difficult to deliver-or justify-the necessary money. For two years, Rattle refused to sign up formally, until both his financial and political conditions for the orchestra were met.
In his highly readable biography of Rattle, a new edition of which is issued this month by Faber, Nicholas Kenyon recounts Rattle's previous experience of wringing what he wants out of politicians. When he took over the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in 1980, it was in poor shape both artistically and financially. It also lacked a suitable concert venue. Through force of will and personality, Rattle enlisted the support of the city council (as well as the EU) and got one built-Symphony Hall. Thanks largely to Rattle's insistence that acoustic considerations should be given complete precedence over pure architecture, this is now arguably Britain's most outstanding concert hall. It is an open secret that Rattle will not consider taking on the musical directorship of a London orchestra until Britain's capital can boast a concert hall-and associated rehearsal space-that at least comes close to matching it. Rattle also built up the Birmingham orchestra into one of Europe's more notable, and took his message out to the media, the schools and the community centres of England's second city.
In a phrase that doesn't appear in the German-language edition of Kenyon's book, Andrew Jowett, one of Rattle's supporters in Birmingham, reflected what a privilege it had been to "work in a city that doesn't play silly buggers with its support for the arts." How Rattle's heart must have sunk when he realised that he had arrived in Berlin at a time when the city's leaders were doing just that.
However, two years of brinkmanship got him what he wanted. The orchestra's precarious financial position was underpinned and it was virtually re-established as a self-governing trust in which he and the musicians would play the leading role. With Rattle's support, Franz Xaver Ohnesorg, the new general director of the Philharmonic, won the fight and Rattle signed up in September 2001, taking over the artistic reins not only of the Philharmonic itself, but also those of its home, the Philharmonic concert hall. He has now imported a hitherto unfamiliar agenda-of educational and community projects-similar to his work in Birmingham. If Rattle succeeds again, the standing of the Philharmonic will become a matter not only for the city's cultural elite, but of municipal pride.
For Rattle's first concert in charge, most of the Berlin political elite seemed to be in attendance. Rattle and the musicians must have felt relieved and elated. There is a fatalistic assumption in Britain that our national politicians (and most of the local ones) will never do much for the arts. Few of them care for the arts for their own sake and there is little chance of convincing them to do more out of baser motives, since there seem to be few votes in it.
When the Tories were in government, Rattle was highly critical of their policies, and his support for the Labour alternative was enthusiastic. Yet he is now quoted by Kenyon bemoaning the fact that someone in his position "can't be a friend of any government... I have to say thank you when things have happened, but remind them how much there is to be done."
Many people in the arts feel the same. Yet by taking his campaign out of the concert hall into the community and into the schools-and by retaining his faith in the power of great music to engage and move "all sorts and conditions of men"-Simon Rattle has surely shown the way forward for cultural politics in Europe.
