Warner Classics’ 45-CD compilation of Simon Rattle’s recordings with the Berlin Philharmonic encompasses a time of transition for both conductor and orchestra and the classical music industry as a whole. The earliest recording, a concert performance of Liszt’s Eine Faust-Symphonie dating from 1994, was made during Claudio Abbado’s time as Principal Conductor, a full five years before the players voted to appoint Rattle as his successor. The final recordings were made in 2012, shortly after which EMI was taken over by Universal Music Group and Rattle’s contract with EMI Classics concluded after a relationship lasting more than three decades.

Rattle’s years in Berlin were not without controversy. In 2004 Axel Brüggemann complained in an article in Die Welt am Sonntag that the orchestra’s distinctive sound and tradition were being eroded, and two years later Manuel Brug, writing in Die Welt, chided Rattle for neglecting the German symphonic tradition. Nor were reviewers in these pages fully persuaded by some of Rattle’s recordings. ‘His orchestra plays efficiently, with many fine solo contributions, but I found the soul for the most part missing from the whole’, wrote Alan Blyth about Rattle’s account of Fidelio (11/03). David Fanning was similarly unimpressed when reviewing Rattle’s interpretations of Shostakovich’s First and Fourteenth Symphonies (8/06).

As with other compilations of musicians’ recordings, however, listening to the whole brings a fresh perspective. Inevitably there are performances that disappoint, either as a result of interpretative choices made at the time or by lacking the spark that turns a routine performance into a great one, but also ones that stand out as something special. Ian Bostridge’s accounts of Britten’s Les illuminations, Serenade and Nocturne fall into this category. Another is Rattle’s performance of Messiaen’s Éclairs sur l’Au-delà …, matching the refined eloquence of the version by Myung-Whun Chung. The recording of the Stravinsky symphonies is first class, as are Nielsen’s Flute and Clarinet Concertos with Emmanuel Pahud and Sabine Meyer.

Among the most rewarding recordings in the set are those of the composers that Rattle, for one reason or another, had previous recorded only minimally or not at all. Richard Osborne was rightly impressed by the sensitive and consoling interpretation of Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem as well as the broad and stirring version of the composer’s Third Symphony. Other standout recordings include incisive interpretations of four Dvořák tone poems, Bizet’s Carmen with Magdalena Kožená and Jonas Kaufmann, Liszt’s Faust Symphony and, perhaps most surprising of all, an account of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker endowed with warmth, character and élan.

Four Mahler symphonies are included, three of them re-recordings. Rattle’s 1999 recording of the Tenth Symphony helped further the acceptance of Deryck Cooke’s edition and won both Gramophone Recording of the Year and a Grammy Award for Best Orchestral Performance, although his fresh and compelling 1980 Bournemouth interpretation is by no means superseded. The 2002 account of the Fifth Symphony, Rattle’s first recording as Principal Conductor of the orchestra, is vivid and impassioned, and I found myself preferring the recordings of the Second and Ninth Symphonies here to Rattle’s earlier versions recorded in Birmingham and Vienna. Bruckner is represented with recordings of the Fourth and Ninth Symphonies, the latter including the completion of the finale by Samale, Mazzuca, Phillips and Cohrs.

One disappointing aspect of the set is the paucity of recordings of contemporary music, especially given Rattle’s long-term championship in this area. The recording of Holst’s Planets is supplemented by Colin Matthews’s Pluto and a suite of works by Adès, Dean, Pintscher, Saariaho and Turnage collectively labelled ‘Asteroids’, but these amount to less than an hour’s worth of music. Another disappointment is EMI’s longstanding inability, as observed by RO in his review of Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony (7/07), to make top-notch recordings in Berlin’s main recording venues. Even recordings made under studio conditions at the Jesus-Christus-Kirche in Dahlem lack the bloom and transparency that DG’s engineers regularly achieved in the analogue era. Finally, as so often with box-sets, there are no texts or translations of the vocal music. The CD sleeves reproduce the original covers, although the notes about which performances were recorded live are not always consistent with previously released information. Despite these caveats, with works by Barber, Borodin, Debussy, Haydn, Mussorgsky, Orff, Prokofiev, Rachmaninov, Ravel, Schoenberg, Schubert and Strauss also represented, and performances for the most part of a very high standard, this is one of the most useful box-set editions currently available. Buy it before it disappears.

This review originally appeared in the August 2024 issue of Gramophone. Never miss an issue of the world's leading classical music magazine – subscribe to Gramophone today