Interview with Daniel Barenboim

The Financial Times had lunch with maestro Daniel Barenboim this weekend.

Here are some excerpts:

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.

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