“I was born on November 15, 1942. At that time Buenos Aires was an important musical center; unfortunately a short time later it had ceased to exist. Arturo Toscanini and Wilhem Futwängler, the young Herbert von Karajan, and earlier the composer Richard Strauss performed there for long periods,” he says. Daniele Barenboim in his memories a life for musicraised in the musical heyday in Buenos Aires, same fate with which he shared marta argerich Y Lalo Schifrin.
One of the greatest musicians of our time turns 80, but the celebration planned for November 15 with the Berlin Staatskapelle, under the baton of longtime friend Zubin Mehta, had to be canceled due to ill health.
As announced on the musician’s social networks, Barenboim suffers from serious neurological problems, is undergoing medical treatment and has been advised to cancel scheduled performances.
The son of musicians (both Enrique Barenboim and Aída Schuster, his parents, were excellent pianists), the Argentine-Israeli musician began his piano career in Buenos Aires when he was seven years old.
Educated in a musical environment – he started playing at the age of five guided by his mother and then by his father until he was 17- grew up convinced that everyone played the piano.
Gatherings at the home of Ernesto Rosenthal, a musician of Austrian origin, had a great influence on his life, because not only chamber music was played there, but also all the famous musicians who toured Buenos Aires.
There he met Sergiu Celibidache, who played for him when he was seven years old, and also Igor Markevich, who prophesied his talent as a conductor: “Your son plays the piano admirably, but I can tell from the way he does it that he is truly a conductor”. She then studied with him in Salzburg, also with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, where she received a stricter education.
Before the family moved to Israel in 1952, the musician had played the Concert No. 23 by Mozart, the first with orchestra, at the age of eight. The passage through Salzburg before Israel fascinated the little pianist. “This boy is a phenomenon,” wrote Furtwängler in a letter after hearing him play in Mozart’s city. That text, Barenboim acknowledged, was his letter of introduction for many years and opened many doors for him.
However, success has come gradually. The first recordings were made for the Philips label, after playing for the first time in London in 1956, the year in which a long friendship began with Claudio Abbado and Zubin Metha – “the only person who became my bosom friend” , the musician confessed – conducting in Siena.
Between 1957 and 1959 he gave five or six concerts a year in the United States. The debut in New York, thanks to Rubinstein’s commitment – they met in Buenos Aires where the pianist often played – was not a failure, but not even the performance of the former caused a sensation. piano concert by Prokofiev. He never touched it again.
Gradually it began to gain popularity, his first major concert as conductor was given in January 1967, with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and the work was the Requiem from Mozart. The repercussion was considerable and allowed him to play in many places.
The second phase of his career began in the mid-1960s when, in addition to conducting the English Chamber Orchestra, he began conducting others more regularly and played with the great cellist Jacqueline du Pré. The traction was so intense between the two that they married three months after they met, in 1967.
From her he learned, Barenboim acknowledged, everything that is possible to imagine about a stringed instrument. During this time she worked simultaneously as accompanist for Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, played chamber music with du Pré, Pinchas Zukerman and also Itzhak Perlman and conducted symphony orchestras.
Her relationship with Pierre Boulez
In the same decade he began a long musical collaboration with another of his great influences, the French musician Pierre Boulez. From him he received the best praise of his life, according to what was told in an interview with Federico Monjeau, when he directed the Tetralogy for the first time in Bayreuth and Boulez was present: “And in the end, you and I will find ourselves more or less in the same place.” His debut at the Bayreuth Festival was in 1981 and he conducted there regularly until 1999.
One of the most important stages for the musician begins in 1970 when he conducts the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for the first time as a guest. He then formally assumed the position in 1991 until 2006.
Nothing he had heard in Europe before 1958 had struck him as much as that orchestra, with its precision, volume and intensity that were a revelation to the musician: “It was an impeccable machine with a beating human heart”.
Since 1992 he has been general music director of the Deutsche Staatsoper and in that year he also founded his own project (together with the Palestinian writer Edward Said) West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, composed of Israeli and Arab musicians.
“Each of these musicians who are here with me has a lot of courage, because these musicians come from Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, they have been in front of the public opinion of their respective countries for many years. And here they are, playing together, not because they accept each other’s point of view, but because they respect it”, he declared when he finished the last concert of the tour at the Colón, in 2005, the first time he presented his extraordinary musical commitment To the country.
The influence of the mentality and way of speaking of the Argentines, the musician highlighted in his memoirs and repeated it on more than one occasion, were so rooted in him despite having left at the age of nine, that he did not want to erase them from his life.
Since his visit in 1995, with the Staatskapelle, Barenboim has started talking about Gardel’s phrasing and his way of floating a bit above the rhythms of the bar, or the characteristic way of dressing salad in Buenos Aires. It was his way of considering himself Argentine, as Monjeau wrote.
From that moment on, his travels became more frequent and the Barenboim Festival began in our country -memorable are his complete Beethoven sonatas at the Teatro Colón during the fateful 2002-, which was held for several years and brought together great personalities of music. Thanks to him we owe the return of Martha Argerich to the Teatro Colón.
“Music has always been and continues to be an essential and enduring part of my life. I have lived my entire life in and through music, and will continue to do so as long as my health permits. Looking back and forth, I am not only happy but deeply satisfied,” Barenboim wrote on his Instagram account in October this year, announcing that with a combination of pride and sadness he had to step back from his stage activities and focus on your physical well-being.
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Source: Clarin
