Daniel Barenboim has managed to maintain joint careers as pianist and conductor, something most musicians struggle to do. For his 75th birthday, two boxsets were released, showcasing the breadth of his output: 39 CDs on the piano, 46 as conductor. As well as being a prominent recording artist, Barenboim is best known for creating the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra in collaboration with academic Edward Said, which brings together musicians from Israel and Arabic nations to play together.
Barenboim did step back from performances, due to ill health, for a period during 2023-24. However, he returns to conduct a concert at the 2024 BBC Proms.
How old is Daniel Barenboim?
Daniel Barenboim was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on 15 November 1942. Interestingly, he shares his birthplace with another of the major musicians of his generation: the legendary pianist Martha Argerich.
Barenboim's parents were Jewish immigrants from Russia and both were piano teachers. Because everyone who came to the house was there for a piano lesson, the child Daniel thought everybody in the world played the piano. His father was his only teacher.
How old was he when his career began?
Barenboim was a child prodigy and gave his debut concert at the age of seven. At 15 he attended a conducting masterclass with the Russian conductor Igor Markevitch. Impressed by his young student, Markevitch brought him to the attention of the legendary maestro Wilhelm Furtwängler (one of the greatest conductors of all time), who in turn found him phenomenally gifted. He made his first piano recordings when he was 13 and in his mid-twenties recorded the complete Beethoven piano sonatas for the first of four times.
How does he manage to be both a conductor and a pianist?
Good question. Over the decades, Daniel Barrenboim has held long-term posts with international orchestras including the Orchestre de Paris, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and most recently with the Berlin Staatskapelle. With this secure base, plus concentrated periods each year with the orchestra he co-founded, the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra (more of which in a moment), he manages to schedule recital tours as well. But principally he can do both because a) he has a formidable memory and b) he works extremely hard. Don’t say: ‘When is he retiring?’
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What music is Daniel Barenboim most associated with?
The heartland of Barenboim’s piano repertoire is the Viennese classics: Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, Brahms and more. In otherw words, his piano repertoire of choice has always sat firmly within the Romantic era.
As a conductor, meanwhile, he is particularly celebrated for his Wagner; his efforts to break through the taboo on that composer’s music in Israel, where it has long been unofficially banned because of Hitler’s one-time enthusiasm for it, are perhaps even more celebrated. But his expertise extends as far back as Bach – he’s performed and recorded plenty of the keyboard music – and forward to present-day stars of live electronics such as Philippe Manoury. He was close to the late Pierre Boulez and championed his challenging music to magnificent effect. For many fans, though, he still remains associated with certain pieces by Elgar…
When did Daniel Barenboim meet and marry Jacqueline du Pré?
Barenboim and the great British cellist Jacqueline du Pré met in their twenties in 1960s Hampstead and were married in Israel in 1967. Their recording of the Elgar Cello Concerto became legendary. Together they became emblematic of a very special moment in Britain’s cultural life when its classical musicians were international celebrities and its concert life was flourishing as rarely before.
The documentaries of film-maker Christopher Nupen helped to preserve for posterity something of the joyfulness of du Pré and Barenboim’s musical partnership. After du Pré had to stop playing due to multiple sclerosis, of which she later died in 1987, Barenboim did not conduct the Elgar Cello Concerto again for many years. In 2011 he recorded it with the American cellist Alisa Weilerstein. His recordings with the Berlin Staatskapelle of Elgar’s two symphonies were tremendously successful too.
What role does his West-Eastern Divan Orchestra play in Israeli-Palestinian relations?
Barenboim co-founded this orchestra with the Palestinian scholar Edward Said in 1999. Based in Seville, Spain, the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra brings together young musicians of Israeli and Arabic backgrounds to collaborate through shared musical endeavour. These young people might never otherwise have had the opportunity to meet.
Nobody pretends that music can bring about peace, but the project does help to build bridges between the individuals involved and to show the outside world that they can work together. That offers, at the very least, some kind of hope.
When did Barenboim conduct the 'concert for peace' in Gaza?
In 2011, Daniel Barenboim led a specially formed orchestra in a concert in Gaza in order to promote peace.
The performance, by the Orchestra for Gaza, was the first to feature an international ensemble in the Palestinian territory.
Members of the orchestra were taken from the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics, the Orchestre de Paris, the Orchestra of La Scala, Milan and the Berlin Staatskapelle. The repertoire featured Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nacht Music and Symphony No. 40.
Will Daniel Barenboim be at the 2024 BBC Proms?
Yes. At the age of 81, Daniel Barenboim will return to conduct a concert at this year's Proms. On Sunday 11 August, he will lead his West-Eastern Divan Orchestra in a performance of Schubert's Symphony No. 9 ('Great') and, in company with the renowned violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, of one of the greatest violin concertos in the repertoire: the Brahms Violin Concerto.
