Daniel Barenboim

The first thing I notice is a security guard at the gateway. The second is the mingling of Hebrew and Arab voices indoors. The arid landscape, baked by midday heat, could be mistaken for the Middle East. But I am standing in the covered walkway of a former monastery in southern Spain, and the atmosphere is unmistakably focused on harmony. Every room radiates the sound of musicians practising or tuning up.
The Lantana hostel, 30 minutes’ drive from Seville, is one of the few places in the world where Daniel Barenboim, conductor, pianist and pathological over-achiever, feels sufficiently relaxed to put his feet up. Literally. As I am ushered into a sun-filled room, I see him lounging on a sofa at the far end, dressed down in a white polo-shirt and grey striped trousers, his bare feet perched on the coffee table. For the past eight years he has been coming to Lantana to work with the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, which he and the late Palestinian writer and philosopher Edward Said founded in 1999.
EDITOR’S CHOICE
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It is the day after a performance of Beethoven’s Fidelio in Seville’s Teatro de la Maestranza – the culmination of an intensive two-week rehearsal period. Barenboim looks tired. The following morning he and a 103-strong entourage, ranging in age from 12 to mid-20s, will set off on a gruelling international tour, finishing next Friday and Saturday at the BBC Proms in London.
Barenboim, now 66, has been at the forefront of classical music for six decades. He gave his first piano recital at the age of seven in his native Argentina (three years later he and his family moved to Israel). At 17 he performed his first cycle of the 32 Beethoven piano sonatas, a feat he has repeated about 30 times around the world. Aged 20 and already fluent in five languages, he made his conducting debut in Israel, later becoming music director of the Orchestre de Paris, the Chicago Symphony and the Berlin State Opera – the last of which remains his fiefdom, along with La Scala, Milan, where three years ago the post of maestro scaligero (master of La Scala) was created for him.
The music in Barenboim’s life never stops but in the West-Eastern Divan, named after a collection of Goethe poems evoking western awareness of eastern culture, it shares the limelight with political activism. He sees the orchestra as a model for dialogue in the Middle East – an example of how to break the wall of hatred between peoples. Its members are drawn not just from Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, but also Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon and Iran. They share accommodation, food, transport and music desks.
Barenboim himself has taken Palestinian citizenship, a move that, along with his attempts to play Wagner in Israel and his groundbreaking West Bank concert with the Divan in 2005, incenses many fellow Jews. His activism has also been criticised by Palestinians, who argue that dialogue is counterproductive until Israel acknowledges basic Palestinian rights.
Barenboim’s assistant has warned me that “everything is fluid” – a polite way of saying the maestro’s attitude to lunch, like that to rehearsals and performances, is a miracle of improvisation. He is talking to someone I assume to be a colleague but breaks off to acknowledge my arrival, bidding me sit on the chair next to him. “Have you met Patrice Chéreau?” he asks, indicating the distinguished French director, screenwriter and actor seated opposite. I scramble for an appropriate response, murmuring something about my first encounter with Chéreau’s work back in the 1980s.
“But what about Tristan? Did you see Tristan?” interrupts Barenboim, referring to the Wagner opera he and Chéreau produced at La Scala two years ago. Yes, I really liked it, I reply, trying to convince them I am not making up compliments for their benefit. “Why do critics always have to apologise for saying nice things?” asks Barenboim mischievously. The joke is on me but it fulfils its purpose: we all laugh. Chéreau slips away, the room clears and lunch can begin.
Barenboim asks whether I would prefer to remain where we are or eat in the canteen. With young musicians milling around, the canteen promises atmosphere and instant food but also noise and interruption. Barenboim looks as settled as I will ever find him. We stay put. Is there anything I don’t eat? No. I am brought a glass of water and he orders food in Spanish.
I ask Barenboim about last night’sFidelio, an opera about political imprisonment, oppression and injustice. Despite being performed in German, the opera had a tangible effect on the Spanish audience.
One of the most noticeable features of the performance was Barenboim’s decision to replace Beethoven’s spoken dialogues with a narrative written by Said shortly before his death in 2003. This narrative addresses the current situation in the Middle East, I observe – “without reducing the opera’s universality”, interjects Barenboim. “This is something Israelis and Arabs can both feel. Israelis still feel the weight of having been victims – they can’t help seeing the phantom of the Holocaust in today’s world. Whoever is not in agreement with them is automatically associated with this phantom. The Palestinians also feel victimised – they are the victims of the victims. But let me be clear: I am not equating Israel with the Nazis.”
Of course not – but, I point out, if he is struggling to persuade Israelis to listen to Wagner, how much more difficult must it be to persuade them to hold a Divan-style dialogue with their Arab neighbours? What this orchestra represents, I suggest, is a little Utopia in a world of harsh reality.
Barenboim’s response is interrupted, first, by the star of last night’s Fidelio, the great German soprano Waltraud Meier, breezing in to pay her compliments; then by the arrival of a tapas-style selection of food – and lots of it. I go for roast chicken with rice, while Barenboim chooses stuffed peppers, chicken and vegetables. Spanish wines are presented: I accept a glass of white. Barenboim declines, complaining of gout, which, he says, has given him a limp.
I ask him whether, as a musician sticking his head into politics, he fears being dismissed as naive. Barenboim retorts that he is “not trying to tell the world what to do. I would accept what my critics say if the solution they had in mind was practical, but we have seen this is not so. If you are sick and have tried every conventional medicine and it hasn’t worked, you have to try alternative medicine. I don’t see how you can be prime minister [of Israel] and pursue the same policies we have had these last 60 years and pretend it is working. Every military victory has left Israel in a worse position. The Six Day War made us feel good for 24 hours but the hangover has lasted 42 years.”
Yes, yes, but how can the orchestra he founded with Said hope to influence the collective consciousness when the various parties to the conflict will not even give it a platform? In its 10 years of existence the orchestra has played just once in the Middle East – a heavily guarded concert in the West Bank town of Ramallah. Barenboim acknowledges that under present conditions there is little hope of returning, but points out that the foundation he set up with Said has established a network of music schools for Palestinians in Israel and the West Bank.
“What we are trying to do”, he says, “is make people see the logic of the other point of view. It’s an alternative model of thinking. It comes from the fact that within the orchestra everyone is equal. They can speak freely – we don’t try to soften their differences. That is why this project has become the most important in my life.
“I am devastated every day when I see the situation [in the Middle East] worsening, and the reason it keeps going like this is that the great majority of Israelis do not feel any sense of responsibility for the Palestinian problem. They don’t feel that the creation of the state of Israel, inevitable though it was from the Jewish point of view, would equally inevitably create the Palestinian problem. We have to make amends. Until Israel is able to recognise this fact, there will be no dialogue.”
Barenboim is in full flood but we are still managing to enjoy our food. Summoning two waitresses who have been standing discreetly in the background, he calls for our plates to be replenished, this time with pasta and salad.
I ask if, as one of the most prominent Jews resident in Germany, he has been subject to anti-Semitism. Barenboim responds by telling a Jewish joke. “What is the definition of anti-Semitism? It’s someone who hates Jews more than is absolutely necessary.” It takes me a moment to understand the meaning – that anti-Semitism is a fact of life. His face straightens. “I don’t belong to this school [of thought]. One thing that made it possible for me to settle in Berlin is that I am full of admiration for the way Germans have come to terms with their past.”
Barenboim says he wishes the Jews could do the same, but that a residual clannishness is understandable in a people that “have been in a minority for 20 centuries, sometimes treated with the utmost cruelty. I would have hoped the creation of Israel would change that, but it hasn’t. The basis of Jewish thought is not the Christian idea of love but morality and justice. We Jews now need to apply this sense of morality not only to our clannish club but to our relations with the outside world. That means re-examining our whole way of thinking, including our humour, if we want to have a normal existence and not see ourselves as victims for eternity. For all these reasons I do the Divan.”
Our plates are cleared – the table is still groaning with chicken, pasta and salad – and Barenboim, in conversation with one of the waitresses, translates the various options for dessert. I choose rice pudding, which comes in a plastic carton, leaving me envious of his bowl of melon.
The tempo is relaxing. Barenboim asks if I would object to him smoking. Lighting one of his favourite fat Havana cigars, he sends smoke billowing skywards. I had wondered when might be the right time to mention his first wife, Jacqueline du Pré, the charismatic English cellist with whom he mesmerised the musical world in the 1960s, and who died in 1987 at the age of 42. Does he tire of references to his past?
“I’m rather touched by the love [people feel] for the memory Jackie has left. Musically, she is still present. The other day the Divan was rehearsing Liszt’s Les Préludes, and I wasn’t satisfied with the way the cellos were playing the lyrical melody after the introduction. Almost subconsciously, I was imagining how she would play it. But outside of music, one has a certain amount of time to live, and I’ve lived a very happy life with my new family [Barenboim has two sons with his second wife, Russian-born pianist Elena Bashkirova]. After a relationship of 27 years you either divorce or find a new level of understanding, and I feel that understanding now. The memory of Jackie is no obstacle.”
Mention of Barenboim’s two sons, one a classical violinist, the other a manager-writer for a German hip-hop band, makes me wonder aloud how he responds to the argument that pop is just as good as classical. He throws the question back at me. “Do you think the Beatles were doing it only for money? I haven’t found the arguments to explain why classical music is ‘better’. My son David loves me very much, he is glad about the recognition I get, but he doesn’t see what I do as being on a higher human level than the hip-hop he plays. He is fighting for his things and I respect him for this.”
Two hours have passed almost uninterrupted. The orchestra manager signals that the musicians are waiting. I follow Barenboim, still in bare feet, to the rehearsal hall where, without a moment’s pause, he slips into the language of music.
Daniel Barenboim conducts the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra at the Salzburg Festival on August 15 and 16, at Bayreuth on August 19, and the Royal Albert Hall, London, on August 21 and 22