Simon Rattle (1955-)

[Roasted Swan]

Lovely story!  I love it when we hear of musician jokes from orchestras.  Here is one I heard about, Andre Previn had just taken over the LSO I think in the late 1960's.  The orchestra was going to haze him because he was very young, American, and mostly known as a jazz pianist/film composer at that point.  The oboist detuned their A up to a B flat and the whole orchestra tuned incorrectly.  Previn walked to the podium, raised his hands about to give the downbeat, paused then asked the whole orchestra to transpose the piece down a half step.  Everyone laughed because he caught the joke/trap they had set.

When I was at the Guildhall School in London (early 80's) Previn came in to conduct the main orchestra (I wasn't playing).  He had this famously acute hearing so a horn player decided to play a note (or short phrase - I can't remember) wrong to see what he said.  The first time he let it go, but when it was repeated he stopped the orchestra and in a perfectly pleasant manner asked the player in question to check his part.  He really did know every single line of the orchestra and he could hear it.  Previn was an extraordinary musician I reckon......