Charlie Rose

REMant  12/17/2010 11:45 AM Report

I've never known quite what to think about Simon Rattle. He is like, actually, a great number of British conductors past and present: a jack of all trades and master of none. Considering the number of orchestras he has conducted, he has produced astonishingly few prized recordings. Years from now reviewers may be writing as they are about conductors like Beecham today: 'tho little realized, he was a great Wagnerian.' I don't know if he gets it from the Americans, but Levine is much the same, and so was Bernstein. He was appointed perhaps more for his style than his substance and over some considerable objection, incurring the wrath of many Berliners. But you can certainly argue the Philharmoniker was in need of more "style," tho Karajan had developed a little too much of it. And large subscription orchestras are obliged to play more than Beethoven and Brahms, even in Berlin, tho there's a considerable exchange of batons, as it were, going on these days. While conductors do develop some surprising extra-curricular affinities - Mackerras for Janacek, Colin Davis for Berlioz, for example - still in all I think there's far less of the sort of specialization that produced great recording cycles than in the past. BTW, Erich Kleiber, Carlos's father, was greater still.