Rattle to quit Labour's musical desert

SIR SIMON Rattle, Britain's greatest living conductor and an outspoken critic of Labour's policy towards arts funding, has revealed that he intends to leave the country.

Sir Simon, 43, who left the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO) in August, has previously voiced his frustration at the low priority given to music teaching in schools and the paucity of arts funding.

The conductor's plans for his future are disclosed in Simon Rattle: Moving On, a BBC2 documentary to be broadcast next Sunday. During an interview he said: "I wouldn't be surprised if, whatever the next job I took on, it was not here in Britain. There are a lot of extraordinary things happening in Europe, where they have the facilities to do it."

Friends of Sir Simon's, including the pianists Alfred Brendel and Imogen Cooper and the baritone Thomas Allen, also appear on the programme to talk about the conditions that would encourage him to stay.

The conductor's comments have been interpreted by arts world insiders as an attempt to put pressure on the Government for more resources. In reality, there are few jobs in British classical music that would suit such a high-profile and independently minded figure and Sir Simon already has freelance commitments around the world. Speculation about his future has been rife since he left the CBSO after 18 years. The Berlin Philharmonic has been a possibility but it is unlikely to offer him the post of musical director unless sure he would accept.

The Vienna Philharmonic, with whom he has agreed a recording and touring deal, is another possibility. The orchestra's pounds 10m annual grant is five times the public subsidy awarded to the four London orchestras, but it does not have a musical directorship post.

Sir Simon was also linked to the cash-strapped Royal Opera House before the current musical director, Bernard Haitink, decided to rescind his resignation and stay on another year.

All the American orchestras are desperate to woo him: last year, the Philadelphia Orchestra said it would have loved to hire him and Cleveland offered to build him an opera house. But working in the United States would be unlikely to offer Sir Simon the free reign in programming that he enjoyed in Birmingham and which allowed him to turn the orchestra into a world-class act.

As Curtis Price, the principal of the Royal Academy of Music, pointed out, one of Sir Simon's greatest achievements has been to build up a loyal public "with 100 per cent capacity in most concerts, however adventurous the programming". Against a backdrop of falling London audiences, his departure would be a massive blow to the international standing of British classical music. Indeed a group of his supporters have become so concerned that they want to create a new concert hall and orchestra to encourage him to stay.

Sir Simon warned recently: "Running a British orchestra is wonderful but very hard. We spend our time jumping through hoops trying to prove our right to exist at all."

Recently his vision of a millennium arts festival in Birmingham came under threat as the Millennium Commission and the Arts Council backed away from providing more than pounds 6m in funding for the project.

Wherever the conductor goes, however, he is unlikely to sever all links with Britain. A post in Berlin would take less than six months a year and he is scheduled for appearances in Birmingham until 2003.

The Artistic Opposition

Andrew Lloyd Weber was said to have threatened to leave Britain if Labour won the ecection, a claim he denied. Lord Lloyd-Weber, composer of a string of West End hits, including Evita and Cats, was angered by an early day motion claiming his reported intention was an incentive to vote Labour.

Sir Peter Hall, one of Britain's greatest theatre directors, is heading for Los Angeles to direct a Shakespeare season after his bid for pounds 500,000 Arts Council funding for the Old Vic was turned down. Sir Peter was apparently told that there was already "enough serious theatre in London".

Damon Albarn of the pop group Blur was among the cream of Cool Britannia's music industry who turned against the Government in the New Musical Express in March, criticising Labour's policy on further education and the Welfare to Work plans among others.