Sir Simon Rattle’s return to Britain is a once-in-a-generation opportunity; not just for the London Symphony Orchestra, whose national significance and international profile his appointment raises exponentially, but for the whole of orchestral and classical music in the country. His presence at the top of Britain’s most acclaimed ensemble has the potential to be the catalyst for a revitalisation of classical music, from schools and music hubs to conservatoires and concert halls.

Partly it’s the politics. For the first time in living memory – or at least since Rattle left the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in 1998, where he was responsible for the finest recent hall for orchestral music in the UK, Birmingham’s Symphony Hall – politicians across the board feel they have to engage with classical music. With Rattle in place, he becomes the most powerful ambassador for music and music education in the country. And his priorities will be the same as they always have throughout his career: to democratise the art form, to shatter the dangerous illusion that the primary function of orchestras is to play concerts in gilt-edged cages around the world, and to connect new audiences with orchestral music. He did it in Birmingham and Berlin, and he will do it in London.

But mostly, of course, it’s the music. And here’s the thing: as his recent week-long residency in London with the Berliner Philharmoniker revealed, Rattle’s partnership with that orchestra has reached powerful heights of intensity and adventure. But his concerts over the last couple of seasons with the LSO have been just as exciting. And I think he has the possibility to go even further in London than he could in Berlin.

Simon Rattle appointed music director of London Symphony Orchestra Read more

All of the transformational projects he had to fight so hard for in Germany – extending the Berlin Phil’s repertoire in new and older music, establishing its education and outreach work for the first time, opening the ensemble up to new collaborations – are already essential to the LSO’s creative core. In that sense, the LSO is a better match for Rattle. The challenge in London is to infuse the depth and dazzle of that central European sound into the orchestra, which is something that will need a major organisational as well as musical overhaul to achieve: put simply, the LSO needs more rehearsal time and to repeat more programmes instead of committing to a continual carousel of tours and gigs, a schedule that the Berlin players could never contemplate. And for that, the players will have to be paid more, too.

And then there’s the new hall, which must be the embodiment of a future-proof vision of orchestral possibility, with education, openness and digital accessibility at its heart. No building for orchestral music has ever been made like that in the UK (Miami’s Frank Gehry-designed New World Center is one of the very few precedents), and in my view, it’s a one-off chance that must not be missed. But if and when it happens, that’s years away: before then, Rattle’s appointment is precisely the seismic, creative shock that classical music needs.