Berlin Philharmonic plays inconsequentially

While Rattle romps expressively on the podium, the Berlin Philharmonic musicians sometimes tend to play as inconsequentially as if they were a wife reaching to the fridge to get out a beer for her husband - Alex Bruggerman in Die Welt am Sonntag on Rattle's Cosi fan Tutte.

Read how the German critics are sharpening their teeth on Sir Simon before turning on the England football team in next month's soccer World Cup in Simon Rattle's Berlin Philharmonic failing to thrill in today's Guardian.

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If you enjoyed this post take An Overgrown Path to Berlin Philharmonic's darkest hour

Comments

Pliable said…
Read a follow-up story in the Guardian via this link -

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/features/story/0,,1783549,00.html
Anonymous said…
Well I'm sure we'd have him back...

But what I really wanted to say was please don't use "soccer" when describing the World Cup. I went to a rugby school and even I can't abide that word! Your American readership can learn the real name of the sport.

Keep up the good work.
Pliable said…
Thanks Adam, and fair point. I did use both football and soccer in the same sentence to try to cater for both sides of the Atlantic, but I know what you mean.

Knowing how far to 'Americanise' the blog is a problem, the article I have just finished throws up problems of movie versus film, phonograph versus record player etc.

There is a heavy US bias to the readership of On An Overgrown Path despite its UK origin. (I regularly receive invites to concerts in New York!) I don't know whether this then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as the Americanisation attracts more US readers, and so on ...

Any views, from either side of the pond, welcome on how far Americanisation should go. Or are cultural boundaries now made irrelevant by the internet?

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