Shanghai Daily news

The two Shanghai concerts presented late last week by the Berliner Philharmoniker — regarded as the best orchestra in the world — were rapturously received by the city’s music lovers and critics, writes Michelle Qiao

Conductor Simon Rattle in performance.

Local music critic Wang Shu took the music score for Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major (Eroica)” to the performance by the Berliner Philharmoniker at the Shanghai Oriental Arts Center last Thursday night, the orchestra’s  first-ever Shanghai concert.
“It was amazing the way they followed every detail of the score and they did it in such an artistic way, even including the rests,” Wang says.
The orchestra conducted by wildhaired Simon Rattle stunned Shanghai music lovers with its two concerts late last week. They left Shanghai on Saturday but the heavenly music they played still lingers in the concert hall and in the memories of the audiences.
“It was the best live symphony concert I’ve ever heard,” says famous composer and deputy head of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, Yang Yandi. “The playing was transparent, light and vivid and very close to the requirements of Beethoven’s time. If Beethoven had heard the music himself, he would have been astonished because the orchestras of his time could not have reached this level.”
Well-known Chinese violinist Pan Yinlin observes: “They created a very sharp contrast between strong and light notes which makes the music even more compelling. It would take me a lifetime to master their skills.”
Close to orchestra Chinese conductor Cao Peng was thrilled by the French horn players.
“The sound was so beautiful and rare, as if from heaven,” the famous 80-year-old conductor says.
“Rattle’s conducting was simple and swift. But I still prefer the Herbert von Karajan style because he could dig out the innermost parts of a composition.”
Critic Wang noticed that Rattle stood very close to the orchestra during the concert.
“When he came out to answer a curtain call, he stood either in the middle of the violins or in the woodwinds which shows that he regards every orchestra member as being equal,” says Wang. “It was very different from the Karajan era.
Now they are one big family.” Well, Rattle voiced similar sentiments before the Shanghai concerts.
“It’s not a matter of orchestra and conductor — it’s a matter of being a team,” Rattle says. “We do it together. We feel like a family ... a single unit.”
Many music lovers chose to go to the second concert last Friday, particularly to hear a contemporary piece “Asyla” by Thomas Ades.
“We brought a wide range of music from Haydn in the 18th century to a new piece written only 30 years ago,” Rattle says. “We hope the audiences will enjoy the variety of the ‘meal’ we have prepared for them. We know that the wonderful Chinese cuisine has many different dishes and flavors.
This is how you make them go together. I hope it will also be the secret of our music.”
Rattle is famous for his interest in inventive and avant-garde contemporary music. “Like many young children, I don’t find a lot of contemporary music complicated or difficult to listen to,” says the conductor who likes listening to jazz and African music at home.
“Beethoven’s colleagues thought he had gone mad. One of the very earliest reviews of Beethoven’s works had the headline ‘Can modern music get any uglier than this?’ Often when you try a new type of cooking, it may taste strange but it’s still worth trying.”
Rattle says the Berliner Philharmoniker is a young and growing orchestra although it has a long history.
Relaxing rehearsal “It’s an orchestra that faces in two directions,” he says. “It has an extraordinary tradition but it also looks to the future, to try to be an orchestra of the 21st century.”
Perhaps that’s why another famed Chinese conductor, Chen Xieyang, says he has noticed a big difference between this Berliner
Philharmoniker and the one he heard in Beijing in 1979 when it was under the baton of Karajan.
“Karajan’s orchestra was serious and heavy while Rattle’s is refreshing and colorful,” says Chen, who is also musical director of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra.
Well, the musicians were seen to smile a lot during rehearsals and the first violin was so relaxed he even put his head on the pillow of his chair when he was not playing. And Rattle was running like a rabbit around the stage and the seats in the
concert hall to adjust the playing to suit the new venue. Perhaps that’s why the music they played sounded so warm and harmonious.
“They’ve maintained the Berliner Philharmoniker tradition from Karajan’s time but the music has become more vigorous,” says critic Wang. “All the musicians respond very quickly to Rattle’s conducting.
The orchestra had already solved all the necessary musical technique. “They were not performing — they were enjoying the process of finishing an artistic piece.”