At no time during his seven-decade career did Daniele Barenboim considered slowing down his frenetic pace, until a serious neurological condition forced him to cancel performances and step down permanently last month as music director of the Berlin State Opera after 30 years in charge.
However, just two weeks later, he received a call at 7:15 on a Sunday with an unexpected invitation from the Teatro alla Scala in Milan to conduct three Mozart concertsafter Daniel Harding canceled due to family reasons.
A couple of days later, Barenboim was already rehearsing at La Scala, where he worked for almost a decade as principal conductor and then as music director.
“It was like I was gone for a week, I was really moved, really,” Barenboim told the Associated Press news agency.
There is no question that his health remains the number one concern after he was diagnosed with what he only described as a serious neurological condition. He moves slowly and takes his time standing. However, people who have seen him rehearse say his energy is evident as soon as he takes the baton.
“I will see day by day”
Despite his illness, Barenboim, 80, is determined to occupy the conductor’s podium as much as possible, even at the cost of sitting down, which he did for a New Year’s concert in Berlin, and which he could do again in Milan. “We’re going to have a day-to-day approach: I’m going to look at it day-to-day,” he said.
“I know you expect me to say this disease has changed my life, but it hasn’t,” she insisted. “The things that were very important to me, as a musician before, are still just as important. The things that weren’t important aren’t yet. I can’t say I feel perfectly, but I feel good enough to conduct tomorrow, and hopefully, Thursday and Saturday. Then we’ll see”.
As for playing the piano, he commented, “The piano is something else. He’s only performed in public twice in the last year.” She has not revealed whether he plays privately.
What is clear is that at no time during his seven-decade career around the world, conducting orchestras from Berlin to Milan to Chicago or Paris, did Barenboim consider slowing down his frenetic pace. That was until his health forced him to.
“I Never Felt My Age”
“I never felt my age. I never considered it. That I was no longer 20, or 30, or 40, or 50, or 60 or 70,” Barenboim said. “I’ve been affected, but I feel good and can make music. I’m very happy making music.”
Resigning from the Berlin State Opera, known in German as the Staatsoper, made him sad but necessary, he said. “It’s a full-time job and I can’t do it anymore.”
To maintain ties with that institution, Barenboim he will conduct two concerts with the orchestra of the Berlin State Operalater this month and hopes to feature more.
“People can’t listen to music”
Barenboim is now worried about the world. Putin’s war in Ukraine, which he cannot understand. The situation in Israel. And the decision of some in the West to isolate Russian musicians, which he does not consider justified. “Not all Russians are anti-Ukrainian,” he said.
“Let’s face it. We don’t live in a very spiritual age today. The spiritual dimension has shrunk in every way,” Barenboim said. “I think it’s very sad and I hope it’s just a transition. I’ve known the world since the 1950s. For better or for worse, I’ve always been a very happy person to visit the universe. But it’s become very focused on the concrete, I it looks. Very material.”
He believes people can find salvation in music, but many, even musicians, go too fast to appreciate it.
“People don’t know how to listen to music. They don’t have to know the intricate technical details of composing. But you have to concentrate when you listen. You can’t look at your phone or do other things,” Barenboim said. “And I think you should look for this spiritual state that music can give you. It’s not something that comes by itself.”
Barenboim’s third concert in Milan on Saturday, featuring three Mozart symphonies, will be streamed on La Scala’s new service, La Scala TV.
Source: Clarin
