"The Konzerthaus must be realized as soon as possible": Simon Rattle continues to fight for the home of his BR Symphony Orchestra. © Vera Johannsen
Finally arrived in the family: You immediately believe Sir Simon Rattle when he asserts this again and again. Some things will change at the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. And the new chief conductor has to manage the balancing act – between a cautious programmatic reorientation and the fight for the longed-for concert hall in Munich's Werksviertel. An encounter.
In your very second concert programme, you conduct Mahler's Sixth, the "Tragic". A kind of British humour?
(Laughs.) When you plan your first season with an orchestra like this, you want to show so much. I thought to myself a long time ago: I would love to hear the ensemble with this piece.
Haydn's "Creation" at the beginning, on the other hand, is like pressing the reset button. Did you want to mark a kind of Munich zero point?
There is a BBC radio programme in which they present their eight pieces of music for the desert island. "Creation" is definitely one of them for me. I even thought: What if it can only be one work? In my case, that would really be exactly that. It's not a simple jubilation, there's a hidden shadow. The work is also about what happens when we don't honor creation, nature.
Nikolaus Harnoncourt always said that the classical concert program with overture, solo concerto and symphony was long dead. So how do you plan concerts today?
Nicholas was right. But think about it: when Mahler performed his Seventh Symphony for the first time, a Liszt piano concerto was played after the intermission and an overture at the end. When, much later, the great symphonies of Bruckner and Mahler appeared more frequently in our concerts, there were hardly any possibilities to vary the program structures, because in our understanding these works displaced many other things. On the other hand, I can still remember a time when many more shorter pieces were performed in one evening. In short, I just like to play with these different possibilities. I don't know where all this is going. During the pandemic, we learned that shorter concerts with correspondingly shorter works were well received. And not only because the Corona regulations at the time required it.
If you compare Munich with Berlin: What works in this cultural biotope, what doesn't?
I'm not going to put my foot in my mouth and say what doesn't work in Munich. Munich and Berlin are so different. You wouldn't believe they're in the same country. Sure, Berlin is harder and rougher. Munich has this extraordinary appreciation of beautiful things. Give me some time, I will discover this city more and more. What you can definitely feel: the history of this orchestra. The influence of Rafael Kubelik, of Colin Davis, of Mariss. There is a special warmth, a chamber music feeling. That's why I feel at home here. Here you think: That's where the conductor is, but we all work together.
But not yet in their own homeland. A few days ago, the Minister of the Arts, Markus Blume, spoke in the state parliament about Bavaria's cultural projects. The concert hall still appears, but does not exactly take first place in its "cultural cascade". Did this speech change anything for you?
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A cascade has something to do with a waterfall. And we would like to be part of the great mass of water that is being moved. And not something that is left behind. After all, it has become clear that Minister Blume is not against this project in principle. The impression that this project does not have to be implemented as soon as possible is another problem. But that's exactly what needs to happen from my point of view. For me, as an outsider, which I really still am, it is very unusual that there is a plot of land for the concert hall and a contract with the owner that even contains the word "concert hall". And yet it is said that we cannot start because we still have to think and plan. To an outsider, this is, let's say, surprising. Sounds very British, I know. But I will now be in Munich more often, and hopefully there will be opportunities for more talks with Minister Blume and Prime Minister Söder. The last ones I had with them were last year.
A former head of a Munich cultural institution once told me that he had to deal with four prime ministers. Edmund Stoiber did not understand so much about culture, but he knew about its importance. Is the problem that the latter is no longer the case at the moment?
We are in an alarming new world in which we need culture more and more. Also because we have to find ways to bring people together. Look, I'm from the UK. There have never been easy times for culture there. In this respect, I am used to such a discussion. In Germany, especially in Bavaria, however, there is still the feeling that culture is something central and is part of our understanding of humanity. So I continue to hope.
Is the role of artists changing? Because they need to be more politicians?
About 45 years ago, I sat next to director and artistic director Peter Hall at Glyndebourne. And I asked him, "What's it like to be attacked by Margaret Thatcher almost every month?" He said, "Simon, it's very simple. There is no other option than to defend oneself and fight for culture." Then he smiled: "And next it's your turn." None of us wants to fight this battle. We are simple people who just want to make music. But think about it, even if it has been known for a long time: An ensemble like the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra has no home of its own. It is constantly traveling in its own city. (On German:) That's strange, as we say in Liverpool.
Do you have to fight on two fronts? For a concert hall and for your orchestra, when you think of the current debate about public broadcasting?
That, too, is happening in Great Britain right now. It's incredibly dangerous. As soon as some people realize that such cuts are possible in other countries, they consider doing the same for their own country. We just have to argue...
... what's the best argument?
To simply do our job well. Of course, we can complain, fight and try again and again to convince with words. That is important. But at the same time, we have to prove in reality why this thing of ours is so necessary. So why do radio stations have a public mandate in the field of culture as well?
The only problem is that the decision-makers are constantly asserting how important all this is – and yet they are cutting back.
I'm British. And I've experienced this all my life. We in the cultural sector understand that there are financial problems. But we also know what the other, the dark side, looks like. When there is no longer a functioning cultural life. When I was twenty or thirty years old, I saw politicians in Liverpool say, "We need to rebuild the city. We need to give it a new philosophy. And we need culture to do that." What a wonderful idea that was! I've always been an optimist, and I still am now. What else is left?
The interview was conducted by Markus Thiel.
Here's an overview of Simon Rattle's first season.