Vanity and fake news lie behind Simon Rattle’s new concert hall plan

Like Theresa May with her thrice-spurned deal, the London Symphony Orchestra is pressing ahead with plans for a concert hall to be achieved at a price that no-one believes and for which it has no visible resources. Like Mrs May, the LSO is relying on friendly journalists to distract the public’s attention from the huge black holes in the plan, hoping against hope that momentum alone will carry the day against all reasonable logic. You can see why they keep trying, though.

The LSO promised Sir Simon Rattle it would build him a new hall if he signed on as music director. Its players know that the dismal Barbican acoustic has cost them dear down the years in musical coherence, notwithstanding a £35 million acoustic refit which yielded no more than marginal improvements in some parts of the gloomy hall. The players argue, rightly, that a world-class orchestra needs a world-class hall and that the Barbican will never be more fit for purpose than any other peacetime nuclear bunker.