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Simon Rattle

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Sir Simon Rattle is a British conductor, born in Liverpool in 1955. He played piano and violin, but first worked as a percussionist in the Merseyside Youth Orchestra. In 1971 he went to the Royal Academy of Music, and in 1974, his graduation year, he won the John Player International Conducting Competition. After a performance of Mahler's Second Symphony at the academy he was discovered by an impresario. At twenty he joined the opera at Glyndebourne, where over 28 years he conducted more than two hundred performances.

Music and breakthrough

His breakthrough came with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. He was its principal conductor from 1980 and music director from 1990 until 1998. He set up the series Towards the Millennium, with twentieth-century music, and oversaw the move to the new Symphony Hall in 1991. From 2002 to 2018 he was chief conductor of the Berliner Philharmoniker, from 2017 to 2023 music director of the London Symphony Orchestra, and since 2023 chief conductor of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. He was knighted in 1994.

Influence

His recordings are wide-ranging: from Mahler and Sibelius to Holst and Messiaen, and from War Requiem to Porgy and Bess and The Jazz Album. He also supports youth music and works with youth orchestras. As principal guest conductor of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment he also led performances on period instruments. Rattle made classical music appealing to a wide audience.

Listening

Listening tip. Listen to The Planets from 1987 and notice the great contrasts between the fierce, rhythmic sections and the calm, soft ones.

Discography

Studio albums

Categories: Artists