Berlin Philharmonic reaching out

AIX-EN-PROVENCE, France — The concertmaster wears shorts, the conductor is in sandals. At first glance, the casually dressed, youthful-looking bunch of musicians could be any summer festival orchestra.

Until, that is, Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic start to rehearse. Suddenly a soft passage from Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 7 is flowing past, and the strings sound far from ordinary — polished and precise, but astonishingly rich and warm, too, a place few orchestras can go.

Rattle will bring that hallmark Berlin sound to New York's Carnegie Hall Nov. 13, 14 and 16, pairing works by Gustav Mahler — the Symphony No. 9, the unfinished Symphony No. 10 in the version by Deryck Cooke and "Das Lied von der Erde" — with new music by Thomas Ades and Magnus Lindberg commissioned for the orchestra.

Beyond Carnegie Hall, Rattle will have New York public school students dancing in Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" to the Philharmonic's music Nov. 17-18 at the United Palace Theater, following a similar project in Berlin — part of his belief that classical musicians need to reach out to new audiences.

The Liverpool native, who took over from Claudio Abbado in 2002 and is halfway through a 10-year contract in Berlin, is renowned for his performances of Mahler. He and the Berliners won a Grammy with their recording of the sprawling Symphony No. 10 in 2001.

After the Bruckner rehearsal at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, Rattle talked to The Associated Press about Mahler, the orchestra and music education:

AP: The Mahler 10th — how has your approach to this extremely complex piece of music evolved over the years?

Rattle: Well, I started off with Mahler. Mahler is the reason I became a conductor in the first place ... and I grew up in the first European city where one conductor and orchestra ever did a Mahler cycle, which, hard to believe, was in Liverpool. Charles Groves and the Liverpool Philharmonic did this, a couple a year, the orchestra struggled like anything with it. But for those of us learning music it was a completely life-changing experience. What you have is a great Mahler symphony without a great performing tradition, because it was so controversial for so many years, and for a young conductor this was a great opportunity because in a way you don't have to have any fear, and with an incomplete piece, with a torso, you also have to be very very creative. But now it's a piece I've done over a hundred times. (Predecessor Herbert von) Karajan said to me, "You write off your first hundred Beethoven Fifths." It doesn't get any easier ... It's still so hard to play.

AP: How has the orchestra changed during five years under Simon Rattle?