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Daniel Barenboim
biography, concert review
Article added in March 2000
Biography click
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Born in Buenos Aires in 1942, Daniel Barenboim is the son of Jewish
Russian immigrants. His family moved to Israel in 1952. Barenboim's only
piano teacher was his father. He was seven when he first performed in public
(in Buenos Aires) as a pianist and was launched on a career as a child
prodigy. Soon afterwards he attended Igor Markevich's conducting classes
in Salzburg. During that same summer he also met Wilhelm Furtwängler,
played for him and attended some of the great conductor’s rehearsals and
a concert. Furtwängler subsequently wrote a letter including the words,
"The eleven year-old Barenboim is a phenomenon …" that was to open many
doors to Daniel Barenboim for a long time afterwards. In 1955 the young
Daniel Barenboim studied harmony and composition with Nadia Boulanger in
Paris.
He made his first gramophone recordings in 1954 and soon began recording
he most important works in the piano repertory, including complete cycles
of the piano sonatas of Mozart (which he conducted from the keyboard) and
Beethoven (with Otto Klemperer) and concertos by Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms
(with Sir John Barbirolli) and Bartok (with Pierre Boulez). Between 1965
and 1975 he worked closely with the English Chamber Orchestra, with whom
he undertook many international tours, appearing as both conductor and
pianist. Following his début with the New Philharmonia Orchestra
in London in 1967 he was soon in demand as guest conductor with all the
leading European and American symphony orchestras. Between 1975 and 1989
he was Music Director of the Orchestre de Paris, his tenure marked by a
commitment to contemporary music, with performances of works by Lutoslawski,
Berio, Boulez, Henze, Dutilleux, Takemitsu and others. In 1991 succeeded
Sir Georg Solti as Music Director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In
1992 he became General Music Director of the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin.
He currently holds both posts.
Daniel Barenboim made his operatic début in 1973 when he conducted
Mozart's Don Giovanni at the Edinburgh International Festival, after
which he became closely associated with the Deutsche Oper Berlin. He made
his Bayreuth début in 1981 and has been a regular visitor ever since,
conducting Tristan und Isolde, The Ring, Parsifal
and Die Meistersinger. Daniel Barenboim has also been active as
a chamber musician, performing with his late wife, cellist Jacqueline du
Pré (who died in 1987 from multiple sclerosis), with Gregor Piatigorsky, Itzhak Perlman and Pinchas Zukerman.
He has also accompanied Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in lieder recitals.
In addition, Barenboim has made recording of Argentinian tangos (Mi
Buenos Aires Querido: Tangos Among Friends, 1996) in collaboration
with Rodolfo Mederos and Héctor Console. His Tribute to Ellington
with Diane Reeves, Don Byron and Chicago-based jazz musicians was released
in autumn 1999 for the centenary of Ellington’s birth. Brazilian Rhapsody,
an album of Brazilian music performed by Barenboim and with two tracks
featuring the Brazilian pop star, Milton Nascimento is scheduled for release
in mid-2000.
A Jew born during the Second World War – and an Israeli by nationality
- Daniel Barenboim has worked with three German orchestras - the Berlin
Philharmonic, the Staatskapelle Berlin and the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra.
In the early 1990s, a chance meeting between Barenboim and the Palestinian-born
writer and Columbia University professor Edward Saïd in a London hotel
lobby led to an intensive friendship that has had both political and musical
repercussions. They have similar visions of Israeli/Palestinian possible
future cooperation. They decided to continue their dialogue and to collaborate
on musical events to further their shared vision of peaceful co-existence
in the Middle East. This led to Barenboim’s first concert on the West Bank,
a piano recital at the Palestinian Birzeit University in February 1999,
and to a workshop for young musicians from the Middle East that took place
in Weimar, Germany, in August 1999.
Concert review: Tonhalle Zurich, Febrary 10, 2000
Daniel Barenboim's program included Mozart's Sonata in C-Major KV 330,
Beethoven's Sonata in f-minor op. 57 ("Appassionata") as well as six pictures
from the Iberia-cycle by Isaac Albéniz. The second part of the concert,
Albéniz, was less impressive, probably less due to Barenboim himself
than to the composition. That he is a great interpreter of Mozart, Barenboim
has proved more than once in his career; just listen to his new recordings
of the Mozart Concertos for Piano No. 5, 6 & 8 with the Berlin Philharmonic
Orchestra under his direction (Teldec, 1999, album 3984-21483-2).
In the concert, his interpretation of Mozart's Paris Sonata in C-Major
KV 330 convinced with his rendering of its cheerful, idyllic and playful
moods. Also the second mouvement, with its simple and intimate German Lied-form
in contrast to the other mouvements, was a joy to listen to. Barenboim,
who does not have any technical problems, could render Mozarts melodious
sound perfectly.
The highlight of the evening was Beethoven's "Appassionata". In complete
contrast to Mozart, Barenboim took the listeners on a journey with no joy,
nothing fanciful and no romance. Instead of lightness, there was romantic
darkness, there were passionate emotions, storms and volcanic eruptions.
Barenboim's interpretation of the stirrings as well as the calm parts of
Beethoven's Sonata were of a perfect clarity and transparency. Controlled,
heavy, dramatic, passionate, the pianist dominated the sonata - altough
he took some liberties with the written notes, but that did not hurt his
interpretation. Strangely, the Zurich public reacted quite calmly to this
masterful performance.
After the break, Albéniz' Iberia-suite captured the listeners
attention less. Barenboim should have begun his concert with this Spanish
program. It was again a completely different musical world that opened
up: fanciful, romantic, colourful and with a sense of humour. The Iberia-cycle
is neither impressionism like Debussy nor does it have the energy of the
different underlying Spanish folk music styles. The pictures of the suite
only came to life partly. The encores at end were more than conciliatory.
Barenboim enchanted again with Mozart's Andante from the Sonata in C-Major
KV 545. He is truly one of the great Beethoven and Mozart pianists.
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Daniel Barenboim + West-Eastern Divan Orchestra: Tschaikowsky, Verdi,
Sibelius. Warner, August 2005. Order it from Amazon.de
or Amazon.com.
Order this CD from
Amazon.com
or Amazon.de
Order this CD from Amazon.de,
Amazon.com.
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