Simon RattleRecensioni

A disgustingly young Simon Rattle fronts this sampler disc of his recordings (up to 1993) for EMI. It includes one work that was newly recorded for this disc - Stravinsky's Rag Time, its premiére recording - and then continues with excerpts from 29 other recordings, some of which are "bleeding chunks" torn from various works; not even one whole movement of a symphony, but sometimes just a page or two of the score containing (mostly) the memorable bits.

I came across this in a charity shop and bought it, for very little money, intending for it to live in the car for mere entertainment. But when I looked more closely, the merit of the thing wasn't in the disc, but rather in the booklet, which includes essays on Rattle's career to date, some text on the CBSO and Symphony Hall, their then-new world-class venue in Birmingham, and a full (again, to date) discography of Rattle, making this a useful artifact after all.