Monday, June 22, 2009

Financial Times eats Simon Rattle's lunch

SRHDSHT
Sir Simon Rattle

It was a sort of summit meeting between two venerable institutions, with salami. Andrew Clark of The Financial Times sat down to lunch with Sir Simon Rattle, conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, at his house in Provence. The column, called "Lunch with the FT" (hey, why stay up late trying to be cute?), is a Financial Times staple.

Clark's conversation with Rattle is, predictably, not merely a chat about cooking and, say, the next series of concerts, with a publicist sitting quietly in the corner to smooth out the rough places. For example, Rattle gave the FT this analytical comparison of German and English culture:

"Rattle ponders the challenges of running a German institution. In
England, he says, people like to be indecisive and then, after making
up their mind, they can be relied on to go through with it. Germans, by
contrast, like to be decisive and then change their mind.

'The
necessity for rules and strictness is a way of dealing with an
enormously powerful impulse: Germans are among the most emotional
people on the planet. Maybe it has to do with the fact that as a nation
they are always drawn back to nature and the forest.'"

Then there was this greyish job description:

"What does a conductor actually do, beyond coordinating and
motivating musicians? 'I have no satisfactory answer because whatever
you say, the opposite would also be true. It’s to do with controlling
and not controlling, allowing and not allowing. It’s essentially to do
with balance – responding to each other and finding where that balance
lies.'

Rattle suggests a coffee. 'Every drug helps,' he says,
alluding to the prospect of a long and arduous Wagner rehearsal 20
minutes away at the Aix theatre."

Read all of Lunch with FT: Sir Simon Rattle.

And here is the menu, by the way:

Simon Rattle’s house
Provence

Cherry tomatoes and salami
Shoulder of lamb
Aubergine ragout
Melon
Château Yon-Figeac 2003 x 2 glasses
Jug of water
Coffee



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