Simon Rattle Leads Debussy and Ravel

How often do you hear a conductor charged with the sin of making music “almost too beautiful” (The Times)? That’s how one critic described Rattle’s interpretation of La Mer, in which he

“makes a listener forget, for once, about musical depictions of the ocean at dawn, playful waves and salty winds. Instead, one experiences the work as an enthralling and radical three-movement symphony of breathless sweep, with savage climaxes and audacious harmonies” (The New York Times).

His treatment of John Adams’s Harmeloniehre has been hailed as definitive, “spellbinding … creating in a succession of soft, tender passages a strikingly rich opalescence. The music shivers and shakes, bubbles and bustles along before erupting into towering waves of sound” (Bachtrack).

But true rediscovery awaits in Rattle’s masterful interpretation of the Suite No. 2 from Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloe. Created for a groundbreaking ballet based on an ancient myth, this music transports the listener to ancient glades, but in Rattle’s hands it’s a journey of particular discovery and delight. “From the very first breath of flutes over murmuring strings, it was clear that Rattle intended to stage the ballet in the mind’s eye. … He did not merely allow Daphnis to bloom; he guided it to grow, twist, and break open. The final Danse générale, with its wildly shifting meters, came off not as a curtain call but as a true release: frenetic yet precise, radiant with rhythmic fire” (OperaWire).