The Guardian view on Simon Rattle’s return to Britain: striking a chord

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/03/guardian-view-on-simon-rattle-return-to-britain

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Most decisions in life require a trade-off between the pros and the cons. Just occasionally, however, a decision comes along that involves only pros. Simon Rattle’s appointment as chief conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra is one of the latter. It is the best possible piece of news that music-making of all kinds in this country could have had. Though much-trailed and hardly a secret – the appointment was already almost taken for granted during the conductor’s recent concerts in London with the Berliner Philharmoniker – it promises to be a defining moment for the arts in general and for music-making, education and training in particular.

When he lands in London from Berlin in 2017 to take up his post, Sir Simon will instantly become Britain’s Sir Classical Music, the public embodiment of his art form in this country, rather as Benjamin Britten was in the 1950s and 60s or Sir Thomas Beecham before him. Many would argue that Sir Simon already got that title long ago, during his many golden years in Birmingham before the starry move to Berlin.

Nevertheless, the LSO’s success in persuading him back to Britain is the dream appointment in its field: a high-profile, high-quality appointment, of someone who is engaged, engaging and accessible – and who tends to get his way. Sir Simon will bring fine concerts, ambitious programming and innovative outreach to London’s kaleidoscopic musical public and young people, as well as a shot in the arm to the arts across Britain. He will give the LSO new lustre. But the test of his power will be whether he can persuade the state and the City to build the new symphony hall that he believes the capital requires.

Some will say: steady on. No one person, however gifted, can be the answer to music’s many difficulties, which include the dominance of the core repertoire, the ageing of the audience, the battle to keep music central to the state school curriculum and the endemic overworking that is both the pride and the curse of British musicians. The arrival of a white-haired maestro who will be 62 when he takes the helm at the LSO may energise London’s orchestral life still further – though it is hardly in the doldrums when musicians such as Esa-Pekka Salonen, Vladimir Jurowski and Antonio Pappano ply their trade so successfully already – but will it really make much impact on the teenagers of the 2020s, or change the lives of the masses of people in London and elsewhere who feel classical music is not for them?

The answer to that is simple. Sir Simon is not a god. He cannot work miracles. But his return offers a rare opportunity to elevate the arts to a new status in British public life. Arts policy has often been bogged down by issues of access and outreach. These things are important. But they are not in any way at odds with the intrinsic value of the arts to a life of the mind and the senses. Sir Simon Rattle’s career – not least as a musician whose horizons were never confined by or to central London – embodies the truth that democratisation and excellence are not enemies but can also be dynamic partners.

• This article was amended on 4 March 2015. An earlier version said that Simon Rattle would be 64, rather than 62, when he takes the helm at the LSO.