“Conductor Simon Rattle… has been at the top of his game for decades, having been principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic for 16 years and music director of the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) since 2017,” writes Ivan Hewett in Wednesday’s (6/15) Daily Telegraph (London). “UK audiences have only one more season to enjoy Rattle’s dynamic presence on the [LSO] podium. What have been his priorities in putting together this final season? ‘The pleasure principle,’ he says simply. ‘There are so many things we’ve wanted to do these past two years, but the pandemic made it impossible. Big, ambitious things like the Brahms Requiem and Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater, two of the strangest and most wonderful religious works ever composed. We’re doing a complete performance of Janácek’s opera ‘Katya Kabanova,’ and eventually we aim to perform and record all of Janácek’s operas.’ The most spectacular of these big-scale concerts takes place next week when the LSO will be joined by musicians from the Guildhall School of Music and the Music Academy of the West, in Santa Barbara [CA], for a concert in St. Paul’s Cathedral…. As for the… issue of diversifying classical music, Rattle welcomes it … ‘It’s all a sign of a swing of the cultural pendulum, which had to happen. And we should embrace it.’ ”
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