Simon Rattle is the second child of highly musical parents: his father was a practising, but not professional, musician; his mother ran a music shop that sold gramophone records; and his elder sister became a music librarian and soon introduced him to music scores, which he read ‘…as other children read comics’. Although at first Rattle was interested predominantly in playing percussion instruments, his ambition to conduct was triggered by hearing, when aged eleven, a performance of Mahler’s Symphony No 2 under George Hurst. The effect of this encounter was profound: to quote Rattle himself, ‘That was it, that was a totally transfiguring experience. It was the road to Damascus, and it knocked me for six…I think in serious terms that is where the seed was...