There’s a great new interview over on The Arts Desk site in which Simon Rattle talks about his relationship with the OAE. There are several
Sir Simon Rattle and the OAE
choice quotes from it though which we thought we’d just pull out for you…
This is like an old rock group that’s been together for ages. Last time I was here we were all having a drink together and one of the violins said, “You’ve got to be very careful around 30 menopausal women, you know.”
When they first got together they said, “We want to do Mozart with you, and we want to see if we can get Bernard Haitink to conduct.” Of course he came and he said, “I don’t like the instruments and everything sounds like a cadence to me,” so that wasn’t going to work.
This is one of the best-read orchestras. You can talk about subjects and writers with these guys that would be hard with many other orchestras. The sheer level of IQ out there is very scary.
Some of the sounds were so unexpected. To suddenly find that you have Miles Davis in the middle of your brass section under the guise of a bass trumpet which normally sounds like a stampeding elephant.
Actually you never eyeball a horn player. That’s one of the real rules. You just don’t.
It’ll be a sexy evening. (on our prom concert last night)
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