A Thoroughly Modern Maestro

Sir Simon Rattle wields his baton more skillfully than his tongue. A recent interview with the long-reigning wunderkind of classical music — a conversation held in English, translated into German and published in Die Zeit, then retranslated back into English by the British press — came off like a tirade against Brit Art stars Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin. ("Much of this English, very biographically-oriented art is bull___.") "I opened the papers and thought, 'I said what?'" he recalls. "It's embarrassing, because it's not what I meant and it's certainly not what I think." Let's hope he finds a better translator now that he's made his long-awaited move to the podium of Berlin's legendary Philharmonic Orchestra.

His new post was once the domain of giants like the autocratic Herbert von Karajan, but with his boyish enthusiasm and unruly curls Rattle cuts a different sort of figure. A native of Liverpool who grew up when the city's four other famous mop tops were shaping tastes in music, he found his calling at a performance of Mahler's Second Symphony. "I was around 11 or 12, and all I remember is the feeling that I wanted to be in the center of this," he says. "It never occurred to me that it would happen as fast as it did." At 25, he became principal conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, where he made his mark with an eclectic approach to the musical canon.

Though he protests that there's "no such thing as a typical Rattle evening," the element of surprise is itself one of his hallmarks. "I like to mix programs as you would prepare a meal," he says. "Sometimes there's a need for some kind of little lemon sorbet." Three years ago the self-governing musicians of the bpo decided that Rattle was just the palate cleanser they needed after the sometimes difficult tenure of Claudio Abbado, the first maestro to announce his retirement in the orchestra's 120-year history. Rattle signed a 10-year contract and has already overseen some changes. Last year he negotiated a deal with Berlin's government that made the orchestra an independent foundation and gave pay increases to the musicians. And the musicians granted Rattle the right to speak at auditions — a privilege, he proudly notes, "even Karajan didn't have."

Now 47, Rattle promises that his iconoclasm will flavor the orchestra. His debut program last weekend featured a characteristically diverse selection: Mahler's Fifth Symphony and Asyla, a work by 29-year-old British composer Thomas Adès that Rattle commissioned while in Birmingham.

For the record, Rattle describes himself as a lover of British contemporary art and an admirer of Hirst. He is clearly excited, however, to be moving from a country "where politically the arts are not even on the radar" to one where "the arts are a profound part of the body politic." As the head of one of Berlin's leading institutions, Rattle will play a central role in the cultural life of a city he calls "the de facto capital of the new Europe." The orchestra reflects this internationalism — its three concert masters are an Israeli, a Pole and a Japanese. And whatever linguistic differences may divide them, all are fluent in the universal language of music.

Q&A

TIME: You got your new job three years ago. That's a long lag time.
RATTLE: A friend said, "You must be getting some idea of how Prince Charles feels." But there were many changes to be made. The structure we were working under until recently was more suited to a 1950s bureaucracy. The new arrangement we've reached with the government allows us to be independent and to have more control over our funds. The fact that we can look for major sponsorship is completely new in Germany.

TIME: How will the BPO's repertoire change under your direction?
RATTLE: There are a lot of areas of music that the orchestra has not played much in the last years, surprisingly including Haydn and Mozart. I like to have a good deal of unusual music in a season, but that does not necessarily have to be contemporary.

TIME: What other changes will people notice?
RATTLE: It's an astonishingly young orchestra now. I'm not used to thinking of myself as the grey eminence, but sometimes I feel like that. Orchestras constantly change, but also keep a lot of the same characteristics. What is the same and no one would ever want to lose is that it still plays as though it's from the bowels of the earth, as though the sound comes from underneath. This orchestra physically moves more than any other. It's not an orchestra that counts a lot — sometimes they could do with a bit more of that!