Daniel Barenboim
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Daniel Barenboim (born November 15, 1942) is an Argentinean-Israeli pianist and conductor. He was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina; his parents were Russian Jews. He holds both Israeli and Spanish citizenship. Barenboim first came to fame as a pianist but now is as well-known as a conductor, and for his work with mixed orchestras of Arabs and Jews, and for his collaboration with Palestinian activist Edward Said. In 2001, he sparked a controversy in Israel by conducting the music of Wagner.
Marriages
Daniel Barenboim was married to Jacqueline du Pré until her death in 1987. His friendship with musicians Itzhak Perlman, Zubin Mehta, and Pinchas Zukerman, and marriage to du Pré led to the famous film by Christopher Nupen of their Schubert "Trout" Quintet; collectively, the five referred to themselves as The Jewish Musical Mafia.Du Pré developed advanced multiple sclerosis. Barenboim lived with pianist Elena Bashkirova and fathered two children with Bashkirova before his wife's death, apparently without his wife's knowledge.#redirect (Du Pré too had had other relationships).#redirect Barenboim and Bashkirova married in 1988, shortly after Jacqueline's death.
Career
Barenboim started piano lessons at the age of five with his mother, continuing to study with his father Enrique, who remained his only teacher. In August 1950, when he was only seven years old, he gave his first formal concert in Buenos Aires.In 1952, the Barenboim family moved to Israel. Two years later, in the summer of 1954, his parents brought him to Salzburg to take part in Igor Markevitch's conducting classes. During that summer he also met and played for Wilhelm Furtwängler. In 1955 he studied harmony and composition with Nadia Boulanger in Paris.
Barenboim made his debut as a pianist in Vienna and Rome in 1952, Paris in 1955, London in 1956, and New York in 1957 under the baton of Leopold Stokowski. Regular concert tours of Europe, the United States, South America, Australia and the Far East followed thereafter.
Barenboim made his first recording in 1954, and later recorded complete cycles of the piano sonatas of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven and piano concertos by Mozart (as both conductor and pianist), Beethoven (with Otto Klemperer and later as conductor and pianist with the Berlin Philharmonic), Johannes Brahms (with John Barbirolli and Zubin Mehta) and Bartók (with Pierre Boulez).
Following his debut as a conductor with the Philharmonia Orchestra in London in 1967, Barenboim was invited to conduct by many European and American symphony orchestras. Between 1975 and 1989 he was Music Director of the Orchestre de Paris, where he conducted much contemporary music.
Barenboim made his opera conducting debut in 1973 with a performance of Mozart's Don Giovanni at the Edinburgh Festival. He made his debut at Bayreuth in 1981, conducting there regularly until 1999.
Barenboim completed his tenure as music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on June 17, 2006, a position he took up in 1991, following in the footsteps of Georg Solti. It has been reported that he was disliked my many musicians and board members of the CSO, allegedly for his support of complex modern music despite dwindling concert attendance. He also is music director of the Berlin State Opera, a position which he has held since 1992. On May 15th, 2006 Barenboim was named Principal Guest Conductor of the La Scala opera house, in Milan, Italy.
Conducting Wagner in Israel
On July 7, 2001, Barenboim led the Berlin Staatskapelle in part of Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde at the Israel Festival in Jerusalem. The concert sparked an outcry, with Barenboim being branded as a fascist by some Israelis. Wagner's music has been taboo in Israel, because Adolf Hitler's theories of racial purity and extermination of Jews drew partly from anti-Semitic writings by Wagner, his favorite composer.Barenboim originally had been scheduled to perform the first act of Die Walküre with three singers, including tenor Plácido Domingo. However strong protests by Holocaust survivors, as well as the Israeli government, led the festival authorities to ask for an alternative program.
Barenboim agreed to substitute music by Robert Schumann and Igor Stravinsky, for the offending piece, but expressed regret at the decision. At the end of the concert he declared that he would play Wagner as an encore and invited those who objected to leave.
Barenboim spent a half-hour speaking to the audience in Hebrew, explaining his rationale behind playing the piece and appealing to the protestors to let the music be heard.
Barenboim said he had decided to defy the taboo on Wagner when a news conference he held the previous week was interrupted by the ringing of a mobile phone to the tune of Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries. "I thought if it can be heard on the ring of a telephone, why can't it be played in a concert hall?" he said.
Sympathies
Barenboim is a vociferous critic of the Israeli presence in the West Bank, saying his adopted homeland is, "losing its moral capital [by] fighting against the identity of a people." In an interview with British music critic Norman Lebrecht in 2003, he accused the Israeli government of behaving in a manner which was, "morally abhorrent and strategically wrong", and, "putting in danger the very existence of the state of Israel." [link]As a gesture of solidarity with the Palestinians, Barenboim has given performances in the Palestinian Territories, in particular on the West Bank.
In 1999, Barenboim jointly founded the West-Eastern Divan orchestra with the late Palestinian-American writer and activist Edward Said, who was a close friend. It is an initiative to bring together, every summer, a group of talented young classical musicians from Israel and Arab countries. Barenboim and Said were among the recipients of the 2002 Prince of Asturias Awards for their work in "improving understanding between nations."
Barenboim wrote a book together with Said, Parallels and Paradoxes, based on a series of public discussions held at New York's Carnegie Hall.
In September 2005 Barenboim refused to be interviewed by a uniformed Israeli Army radio reporter, considering the wearing of the uniform insensitive to the Palestinians present. [link]
He claims that because of his political views he has been called "'self-hating' at best and traitorous at worst".[link]
Wolf Prize
In May 2004, Barenboim was awarded the Wolf Prize at a ceremony at the Israeli Knesset. He took the opportunity to express his opinions on the political situation:
- "With pain in my heart, I ask today whether a situation of conquest and control can be reconciled with Israel's Declaration of Independence? Is there logic to the independence of one people if the cost is a blow to the fundamental rights of another people? Can the Jewish people, whose history is full of suffering and persecution, allow itself to be apathetic about the rights and suffering of a neighboring people? Can the state of Israel allow itself to indulge an unrealistic dream whose meaning is an ambition to bring an ideological resolution to the dispute, rather than the aim of attaining a pragmatic, humanitarian solution, based on social justice?"
Awards and Recognitions
- Buber-Rosenzweig Medal, 2004
- Wolf Prize in Arts, 2004
- Wilhelm Furtwängler Prize, 2003 (with Staatskapelle Berlin)
- Doctor Honoris Causa, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium), 2003
- Tolerance Prize, Evangelische Akademie Tutzing, 2002
- Prince of Asturias Concord Prize, 2002 (jointly with Edward Said)
- Großes Bundesverdienstkreuz, 2002
- Honorary Doctorate of Philosophy, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1996
- Christoph Classen (producer), Eberhard Sengpiel, Tobias Lehmann (engineers), Daniel Barenboim (conductor), Jane Eaglen, Thomas Hampson, Waltraud Meier, René Pape, Peter Seiffert, the Chor der Deutschen Staatsoper Berlin & the Staatskapelle Berlin for Wagner: Tannhäuser (2003)
- Daniel Barenboim, Dale Clevenger, Larry Combs, Daniele Damiano, Hansjörg Schellenberger & the Berlin Philharmonic for Beethoven/Mozart: Quintets (Chicago-Berlin) (1995)
- Daniel Barenboim & Itzhak Perlman for Brahms: The Three Violin Sonatas (1991)
- Daniel Barenboim (conductor) & the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for Corigliano: Symphony No. 1 (1992)
- Martin Fouqué (producer), Eberhard Sengpiel (engineer), Daniel Barenboim, Dale Clevenger, Larry Combs, Alex Klein, David McGill & the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for Richard Strauss Wind Concertos (Horn Concerto; Oboe Concerto, etc.) (2002)
- Daniel Barenboim (conductor), Itzhak Perlman & the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for Elgar: Violin Concerto in B Minor (1983)
- Daniel Barenboim (conductor), Arthur Rubinstein & the London Philharmonic Orchestra for Beethoven: The Five Piano Concertos (1977) (also awarded Grammy Award for Best Classical Album)