Arts & Events

Simon Rattle Conducts Berlin Philharmonic in Mahler’s 7th Symphony

Reviewed by James Roy MacBean
Friday November 25, 2016 - 10:46:00 AM

What a treat it is to have two great conductors and two of the world’s leading orchestras, Gustavo Dudamel with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Simon Rattle with the Berliner Philharmoniker, performing, respectively, Gustav Mahler’s 9th Symphony and Mahler’s 7th Symphony in a three-week span here in San Francisco’s Davies Symphony Hall. On Tuesday evening, November 22, Simon Rattle, the Berlin Philharmonic’s chief conductor for the past 14 years, led his orchestra in a program consisting of Éclat by the late Pierre Boulez and Mahler’s Symphony No. 7 in E minor. The following night’s program by the Berlin Philharmonic featured works by the 20th century Viennese atonal innovators Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern, as well as the Symphony No. 2 in D Major by Brahms. -more-