Daniel Barenboim
Daniel Barenboim (in Hebrew, דניאל ברנבוים; Buenos Aires, November 15 1942) is an Argentine pianist and conductor who is a Spanish, Israeli and Palestinian national.
The son of musicians (both Enrique Barenboim and Aída Schuster, his parents, were prominent pianists), he made his debut in Buenos Aires at the age of seven and was later invited by the Mozarteum in Salzburg to continue his studies in that city, at whose festival participated three years later. He then studied with Nadia Boulanger, Igor Markevitch and at the Academy of Santa Cecilia in Rome.
Biography
Barenboim began his piano studies at the age of five with his mother and continued with his father, who remained as his only teacher. In August 1950, he played his first concert in Buenos Aires. He completed his primary studies at the Pestalozzi Institute in Belgrano R.
In 1952, the Barenboim family moved to Israel. Two years later, his parents sent him to Salzburg to take directing classes with Igor Markevitch. There he met Wilhelm Furtwängler, for whom he played the piano.
In 1955, he studied harmony and composition with Nadia Boulanger in Paris.
Barenboim made his debut as a pianist at the Salzburg Mozarteum in 1952, in Paris that same year, in London in 1956 and in New York in 1957, under the direction of Leopold Stokowski. In the following years he regularly performed concerts in Europe, the United States, South America and the Far East.
He made his first recording in 1954. Later he recorded piano sonatas by Mozart and Beethoven and concertos by Mozart (playing at the piano and conducting), Beethoven (with Otto Klemperer), Brahms (with John Barbirolli), and Béla Bartók (with Pierre Boulez).
Following his conducting debut with the London Philharmonic Orchestra in 1967, he received invitations from various European and American symphony orchestras. On June 15 of that same year, he married the British cellist Jacqueline du Pré. During the last years of du Pré's life, Barenboim settled in Paris with the pianist Elena Bashkirova. A year after du Pré's death from multiple sclerosis in 1987, he married Bashkírova, with whom he had two sons, David and Michael.
His debut as an opera director took place in 1973 with the performance of Don Giovanni, by Mozart, at the Edinburgh Festival. Between 1975 and 1989 he was music director of the Orchester de Paris, where he conducted numerous pieces of contemporary music.
In 1981, he made his debut at the Bayreuth festival, held annually in tribute to Wagner. She conducted regularly in that city until 1999, where she did a complete reading of The Ring of the Nibelung and Tristan and Isolde , with mezzo-soprano Waltraud Meier and tenor Siegfried Jerusalem..
From 1991 to June 17, 2006, he was the conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, a position he took over from George Solti.
On September 2, 2001, he applied for Spanish nationality, which was granted on October 25, 2002. Since 1980, he has frequently performed at the Carlos V Palace on the occasion of the International Music and Music Festival. Grenada dance. Due to her connection with the previous one, she was awarded the Festival's Medal of Honor on July 9, 2011.
He is also the General Music Director of the Deutsche Staatsoper or Staatsoper Unter den Linden, the Berlin State Opera known as Unter den Linden (Under the Linden Trees) since 1992.
In addition to his activities as a pianist and conductor, Barenboim has composed several tangos. In December 2006, he directed the New Year's Concert in Buenos Aires, whose repertoire was Sinfonic Tango.
In 2008, he performed for the first time at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, where he conducted Tristan and Isolde and gave a piano recital, his first in twenty-two years, as the latter had given by Vladimir Horowitz
In 2009 and 2022 he conducted the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra's New Year's Concert.
He was awarded the Legion of Honor by the French government.
As of August 10, 2011, he is a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize for his various activities in favor of peace and coexistence in the Middle East.
Since the 1960s, he has performed in Buenos Aires on several occasions. He performed at the Teatro Colón in 1980 with the Paris Orchestra, in 1989 he performed Bach's Goldberg Variations, in 1995 with the Staatskapelle Berlin, in 2000 with the Chicago Symphony and in a piano recital commemorating 50 years since his debut in Buenos Aires, in 2002 for the complete Beethoven sonatas, in 2004 for the two volumes of Bach's Well-Tempered Clave, in 2005 with the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, in 2006 with a massive concert by New Year's Eve before 50,000 people together with the Buenos Aires Philharmonic, in 2008 with the Staatskapelle Berlin and in 2010 again with the West-Eastern Divan performing Beethoven's nine symphonies and in an open-air concert for 60,000 people and with the choir and orchestra of the Teatro Alla Scala in Milan at the Teatro Colón on the occasion of the Argentine bicentennial.
On October 4, 2022, he announced that he was retiring due to a serious neurological condition.
Wagner in Israel
On July 7, 2001, Barenboim conducted the Berlin Staatskapelle in the performance of Wagner's opera Tristan and Isolde at the Israel Festival in Jerusalem. He was called a pro-Nazi and a fascist by some of those present.[citation needed]
Barenboim was to perform the first act of La Walkiria with three singers, including the Spanish tenor Plácido Domingo. However, protests by Holocaust survivors and the Israeli government forced the organization of the festival to seek an alternative program. Despite disagreeing with the decision, Barenboim agreed to replace these pieces with compositions by Schumann and Stravinsky. After the concert, he declared that in the encore he was going to perform a piece by Wagner, and invited those present who had any objections to leave the room.
West-Eastern Divan Orchestra
In 1999, together with the American writer of Palestinian origin Edward Said, with whom they were united by a great friendship, they founded the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, an initiative to bring together each summer a group of talented young musicians of both Israeli origin and Arab or Spanish origin. Both received the Prince of Asturias Award for Concord for the initiative.
In 2004, Barenboim received the Wolf Foundation Award for the Arts in Jerusalem.
Palestinian Citizenship
On January 12, 2008, after a concert in Ramallah, Barenboim also accepted honorary Palestinian citizenship. He thus became the first citizen in the world with both Israeli and Palestinian citizenship, saying he had accepted it with the hope that it would serve as a sign of peace between the two countries.
Barenboim Festival
In 2019, the Barenboim Festival was held at the Kirchner Cultural Center in Buenos Aires, where the musician was accompanied by, among others, the pianist Marta Argerich.
Awards and distinctions
- Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music, 1975
- Konex Award - Merit Diploma: Pianist, 1989
- Konex Award: Special Mention, 1999
- Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, 2002
- Tolerance Prize, Evangelische Akademie Tutzing, 2002
- Prince of Asturias Award of Concordia, 2002 (with Edward Said)
- Wilhelm Furtwängler Prize, 2003
- Buber-Rosenzweig-Medal, 2004
- Wolf Arts Foundation Award, 2004
- Ernst von Siemens Award, 2006
- Medalla Goethe, awarded by the Goethe Institute, 2007
- Praemium Imperiale, 2007
- Commander of the Legion of Honor, 2007
- Order to the Merit of the Italian Republic, 2007
- International Service Award for the Global Defence of Human Rights, 2008
- Royal Philharmonic Society Gold Medal, 2008
- Istanbul International Music Festival Lifetime Achievement Award, 2009
- Léonie Sonning Music Prize, 2009
- Brillante Konex Award: Classical Music, 2009
- Communicating Knight (honorary) of the Order of the British Empire, 2011
Doctorates honoris causa
- Doctor of Philosophy, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1996
- Vrije Universiteit Brussel, 2003
- Doctor in Music, University of Oxford, 2007
- Doctor in Music, SOAS, University of London, 2008
- Doctor Honoris Causa by the University of La Rioja, 2014
Grammy Awards
Barenboim has received, as a conductor and as a pianist, six Grammy Awards:
- Grammy Award for Best Classical Album: Daniel Barenboim (director), Arthur Rubinstein and the London Philharmonic Orchestra: Beethoven: The Five Piano Concertos, 1977
- Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance: Daniel Barenboim e Itzhak Perlman: Brahms: The Three Violin Sonatas1990
- Grammy Award for Best Orchestral Performance: Corigliano: Symphony No. 1, 1992
- Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance: Beethoven-Mozart: Quintets (Chicago-Berlin), 1995
- Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Soloist(s) Performance (with orchestra): Richard Strauss Wind Concertos (Horn Concerto; Oboe Concerto), 2002
- Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording: Tannhäuser, 2003