Simon Rattle on Herbert von Karajan

A famous conductor himself is bound to tell only good things about his famous predecessors. I don't think that we learned a lot here.

What a soothing voice he has 😌

Great interview. Enjoyed the balance. An attempt to give credit where it is due and explore limitations is never welcomed by fans. I like both conductors : Karajan and Rattle. But you will never get the whole package with one conductor. When I listen to Bernstein I want Alsop, when I listen to Strauss (Richard)I want Kleiber for Barock another set of favourite conductors

Rattle is so great. Thanks for sharing

i like his comment about putin, and whether going back to karajan's strength in 2000-2010s would have been postmodern or modern. but then today we have yet another new world. on the one side there is right wing populism, on the other side strongman politics and stronger government tackling covid better. all is about time and place and people and beyond. you know it was a good interview if it continues to generate dialogue after years. kudos.

Karajan: The first and only conductor who is more important than the composer.

For all his thinly veiled distaste for Karajan, betrayed by the repetition of weasel-words like "repellent" and "repulsed", the fact remains that under Rattle's watch, the famous Klang of the BPO was dismantled and he produced nothing of note during his tenure. Now I fear he will go on to disembowel the LSO. Rattle is scared stiff of the metaphysical in music and usually just prods, fiddles and tinkers with a score until nothing memorable or cohesive emerges. As you may divine, I am not a fan. Herbie had his faults and artistic failings, but the kind of poisonous, hysterical antipathy towards him led by that arch-bloviator Norman Lebrecht, does not alter the fact that Karajan's legacy is ten times that of Sir Simon.

People will still remember Karajan long after Rattle's been forgotten, warts and all.

a gentle man, he describes and remembers Karajan as only a Gentleman could.

Es ist eine Schande, dass er nicht sagt, dass der abscheuliche und arrogante Karajan ein antibritischer Nazi war

Who is this sweet old lady? And why dare she speek of Karajan, als ob she understands anything besides cooking? 🤔 it’s a mistery..

Sir Simon Rattle.

Aside from all the amazing things said in this interview, Sir Simon has such a relaxing ASMR voice.

I listened to a very late interview of Nicolas Harnoncourt with Stephanie Klein of BBC Radio 3 - despite the interviewer very great depths of Soul, Understanding, and Perception came across to me who was not much aware of him.
I wonder how the two men would compare from such an experienced conductor as Rattle is? I suppose that there is always the duality for matching quality à la Mahler and Sibelius from essential difference in outlook.

“I think he and Robert Wilson the director would have got on very well.” Superb.

I sang in the chorus of Damnation of Faust with Maestro Rattle. He’s not only a good conductor, but he also has charisma.

Some day another genius will give a talk about Simon Rattle.

Lets remember drama is a greek invention!

Karajan was a great conductor is the sense that he could get everything he wanted from the orchestra without having to talk. But as a musician he was limited. The sound was always glorious, but great music is usually about more than sound. He was the ideal Richard Strauss conductor, and a fascinating Wagner conductor. But his rounding all the edges came at a great price. Beethoven, Verdi, Brahms . . . They sometimes demand gruffness, clarity of phrasing, variety of emotions. For me, listening to Karajan is like riding in an amazingly plush limousine that isn't going anywhere in particular. Listen to his Brahms Third, his Beethoven 3rd. Perfectly beautiful. Then listen to Walter, Furtwängler, Bernstein, Toscanini. Suddenly the music has meaning, it breathes, it sometimes startles you. You may not agree with the interpretation, but there IS an interpretation. For these reasons, I learn so much about the music from these conductors, and so little from Karajan.

As a young conductor in the 50's he was much more animated. But one becomes what one wants to be, and what he became I find irrelevant.

He very elegantly dances around Karajan's Nazism, but I question the ethics of dancing around that.

Você e Zimerman só piano interpretando Beethoven marcou a minha alma.🌿🇧🇷🇧🇷🍃💚💛💙

Karajan was way superior to Ratle. Way superior!

If there would be today a conductor who could conduct verklärte Nacht or Bruckner 8 like Karajan then it would be great. His Boheme with Pavarotti, unbelievable. His Mahler 9...

Karajan is one of those miracles that come every hundred years. He shaped his world to his liking, he shaped everything to perfection...

I have watched Rattle grow from being a kind of weirdo young conductor, who no one really knew what to do with, into the elder statesman of music we see here. He has surprised many of us!

Karajan's method of music making and the sound he created have never appealed to me. It's mushy, without corners, and applied to every composer . Its wasnt the sound of Brahms, it was the Karajan sound. I prefer a leaner, more precise sound. But he is a fascinating person. And a great conductor of Italian Opera. He got in trouble not for " weeding the garden", but for bringing in his own favorite seed with out the approval of the other plants, to take his metaphor to its conclusion. Seemed like an abrupt and silly end of a great career

What a description, and who will describe you Sir Simon Rattle the great?

I really love that Rattle appreciates the good things.

"I'd never heard a sound like it." And you sure didn't get it either.

Ich bin der Nachfolger. Karajan war ein Genie. Ich bin wahrscheinlich auch ein Genie. Sehr raffiniert.

Karajan is way overrated. His style was to basically let each musician do whatever he wants as long as he follows the tempo. Back then, once you hear a scattered-sounding orchestra playing a piece in an unusually fast tempo, you immediately know it was the BPO. They were the only major orchestra who didn't care about playing as a group. This was the "unique" sound every Karajan fan boy likes to brag about. Yes, it was unique, but it was also awful. I'm sorry to say this, but Karl Bohm was much better than Karajan. Even the current conductor, Kirill Petrenko, is much better than Karajan ever was.

Schade, daß er nicht mehr bei den Berlinern ist ... jedes Konzert war ein Genuß.

Ein großartiger neidloser Spitzendirigent von dem sich andere eine Scheibe abschneiden sollten!

That is deutsch. You say it as it is....not as you wished it should be. Red is red. He is blue....no wieseling.....

Karajan l'avrei riconosciuto anche se avesse diretto i Deep Purple. Sino completamente d'accordo con Rattle. Karajan con umiltà si imponeva su ogni dettato pentagrammatico, al contrario, ad esempio di Bernstein nei confronti di Mahler. Bernstein con veemenza, si sottomise.

its fascinating to see SR say complimentary, even great things about HVK but at the same time keep his barely concealed disgust in check. Walking a tightrope.

Fritz Wunderlich, mein Traumtenor, leider so früh verstorben, hat viel unter Karajan gesungen. Er sagte von ihm :"...sein Geheimnis beruht darauf, daß er sich Leute nimmt, von denen er weiß, daß sie technisch perfekt sind. ...Er macht sehr wenig Proben, er macht intensive Proben, aber kurze Proben. Und er lässt einen winzigen Rest von - ich möchte fast sagen - Unsicherheit. Er hat eben das Vertrauen, daß seine Leute, die er engagiert hat, ...im richtigen Moment dann den entscheidenden Funken bringen. Und das ist das Geheimnis seiner großen Abende, seiner großen Konzerte. Er geht bis fast zur Perfektion in der Vorbereitung. Und die letzte Perfektion, die kommt aus der Intuition. "
(Siehe Biographie von Fritz Wunderlich geschrieben von Werner Pfister, S 324).

mister Rattle is my favorite conductor,i like his understanding of music and his good humor in the rehersals,and how is communicating with the orchestra

Sehr schö erzählt von sir simon rattle übet herbert von karajan

Lucid, precise, emotional and objective appreciation of Herbert Von Karajan made by - along with Gergiev - one of the two best directors of the first two decades of this second millennium.

VIVAT !

Shameful

Von Karajan told that he can concentrate better whrn keepung his eyes closed. He didnt want to see player wipe sweat or such. Von Karajan was simply the best.

Thank you so much. Just found this video. Always loved the way von Karajan's hands moved!

"Carrie-Anne"

There is no way bei den Beethoven insbesondere geht kein Weg an Karajan vorbei,das gilt auch für rattle

Most interesting, two such eminent characters, the old adage comes to mind beware if an Englishman is being over polite!

Von Karajan was a genius. No one comes close.

Maestro…🙏🏾♥️

The idea that German talent is the closest to perfection is a subjective and widely debated claim, but listing Herbert von Karajan does not make you feel anything but perfection.