After a century on record, why has the world’s most famous orchestra decided to strike out with its own label? Clive Paget caught up with the Maestro leading the charge – the indefatigable Sir Simon Rattle.


Once in a while there’s a shift in the tectonic plates of the venerable recording industry. Sometimes, like the advent of the compact disc in the 1980s, it feels like a violent convulsion. At others, particularly to the consumer, it seems like barely a shudder (albeit with far reaching implications) – like Warner’s acquiring a major slice of recording history in the form of EMI. In June 2014, the Berlin Philharmonic launched its own label. Industry watchers have yet to concur on quite what this registers on the classical music Richter scale, but to some of us it has the ring of a game changer about it. When the world’s most famous orchestra – an organisation with an unparalleled association with some, and in particular one of the largest recorded music companies of all time – decides to go it alone, it feels distinctly like something is in the wind.

Sir Simon Rattle is the BPO’s current Chief Conductor, and himself the object of...