Simon Rattle has a rival in Shanghai, writes Michelle Qiao with the Shanghai Daily. The two marvelous concerts given by Rattle and his Berliner Philharmoniker just three weeks ago seemed to be the musical event of the year in Shanghai, but Mariss Jansons' two performances with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra last week at least equaled, if not surpassed, him.
Coincidentally Jansons, reputed to be the world's most sought-after conductor, took up the baton of the Bavarian orchestra just one year after Rattle headed off to Berlin to be the chief conductor of the Berliner Philharmoniker. In addition, both had been the top candidates for the Berliner Philharmoniker, but Jansons pulled out for health reasons.
In Shanghai, local musicians and music lovers could not help comparing the two musical geniuses.
"I prefer Jansons," says Li Yanhuan, a music critic who attended the Shanghai concerts of both musical masters. "Rattle's Beethoven Symphony No. 3 was faster and fashionable while Jansons' Beethoven Symphony No. 7 kept to the traditional style and tempo."
Famous Chinese conductor and music educator Bian Zushan detected minor mistakes during the first concert of Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra last Thursday.
"Jansons' Beethoven No. 7 was compact and strict, in the typical Beethoven style, a composer who could build magnificent musical plazas out of the simplest material," says Bian, who had to fly to Shanghai for the concerts because the city was the only stop in China on the orchestra's Asian tour. "Then this Latvian-born conductor showed the passionate, romantic and 'rugged' Russian style in Shostokovich's Symphony No. 5. While listening to this large-scale symphonic piece, I did not feel it was long or boring. The piece just flowed on so smoothly to the end.
"Jansons looked like a strong young man on the stage who was relaxed, energetic and open-minded," says Bian. "He was passionate but his passion was well under control. I can see he'd benefit a lot from Karajan. The 12 years younger Rattle is much more modern, vivid and a bit exaggerated."
Jansons talked about his teacher, famous conductor Herbert von Karajan before his Shanghai concerts.
"He was the bird flying above us able to see much more clearly and thus he gave us great ideas and challenges," says Jansons, who was assistant to Karajan in music festivals.
Jansons says a conductor can implant his individual personality on an orchestra which, in turn, can implant its personality on him.
"Finally they (orchestra and conductor) reach a harmony, like one family, and between them is chemistry, like the love in a family," he says. "A very good conductor and a very good orchestra might not always create great music, just like when a man loves a woman. Sometimes both are very good people but they are not getting on well with each other. If my 'chemistry' and 'relationship' with the orchestra is not interesting and fresh any more, I will leave the orchestra. Nobody knows when the moment will come -- it's unpredictable."
Jansons is a man who loves theaters, films and basketball. He has a big video at home and began collecting videos of movies 30 years ago. As the son of post-war Latvia's leading conductor, he often played for hours with matchsticks which he set out in orchestral rows during his boyhood.
He would move these wooden "musicians" until he achieved a satisfying imagined sound and continue to play the game. And he grew up as a man who operates from within the music and allow its logic to illuminate his subtle interpretations.
Rattle by contrast has a genius for galvanizing public attention with astute, socially conscious initiatives.
The two are natural opposites, though they are friends, and Jansons keeps on saying that Rattle has successfully made the Berliner Philharmoniker into a harmonious family through his dedication and hard work.
And then, in late autumn, their styles happened to "clash" in Shanghai to the joy of local music lovers.
"Plus we had the two concerts by the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Roger Norrington last month, we are so happy and lucky to have these top-class German orchestras in Shanghai, to appreciate their interestingly different styles," says critic Li.
However, Jansons denies he and Rattle were challenging each other.
"Sport is very competitive but in music, it's artistic pride," he says. "Top-class orchestras are like top leagues. But it's a good competition. Food for the heart is culture and religion. Our tasks are for each of us to make audiences feel enormous spiritual joy.
Well, for a music lover in Shanghai, no joy has been more enormous than seeing Rattle and Jansons in live concerts waving their batons in such different ways.
(Shanghai Daily December 5, 2005)
