Simon Rattle

San Francisco Chronicle:

For watchers of the international orchestral scene, the coming week brings a landmark visit. In its first San Francisco appearance in nearly half a century, the Berlin Philharmonic will give two concerts in Davies Symphony Hall under its new music director, Simon Rattle.

Or, as he's known to American orchestra managers, The One That Got Away.

During the freakish game of musical chairs that descended on the orchestra world four or five years ago -- a period when some half a dozen major organizations, both here and abroad, suddenly found themselves in the market for a new music director at the same time -- the biggest question was whether Rattle would wind up at the helm of an American orchestra.

But when the dust had settled, the English maestro, then just 44, had successfully resisted the blandishments of several U.S. managers and instead secured the leadership of the famously tradition-bound Philharmonic.

...

And the Philharmonic -- regarded by some as the finest orchestra in the world, to the extent that the title has any real meaning -- has not been heard in San Francisco since 1956, when it appeared under its legendary former music director, Herbert von Karajan.

So this week's programs, with repertoire ranging from Haydn and Beethoven to recent works by Heiner Goebbels and Henri Dutilleux, promise the opportunity to hear music-making in the finest European tradition. For those of us yet unborn in 1956, they will offer a chance to correlate the current sound of the orchestra with that of the classic recordings made under Karajan and Wilhelm Furtwängler.

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