Berlin Philharmonic [BPO]: Mr. Barenboim, on New Year's Eve and again on New Year's Day, you conducted the Staatskapelle (Berlin) in Beethoven's "Choral" Symphony (no. 9). It is known that this piece contains is the iridescent sentence by Schiller: "All men will become brothers." Do you still believe in this?

Daniel Barenboim [DB]: Well, the text does not say: "All men are brothers." And this is the point. You can be pessimistic for a short period of time, but you must not be pessimistic for a long period, because then life would become pointless. In my opinion, one should not—be it on an emotional or rational level—be afraid of the changes we will have to face. We are using too little of our life energy to lengthen the good moments and to shorten the bad ones. And because of that, some of the quality of the good moments gets lost. We have to believe that men can become brothers. At the moment, it is very much the fashion today to see just the negative things, as well as it was the fashion to be anti-American after the end of the Cold War. Suddenly, we discovered a yearning for the Cold War. And one also talks about war with a matter of course that was not there before 1989—for the simple reason that it would have been too dangerous. Those are the negative aspects. But concerning racist thinking, many things have changed for the positive. Something like the treatment of the Jews during the time of National Socialism is no longer possible today. And that applies also to the slaves, the racist problems in the United States of America. I still know it from experience in Miami in 1957. I was there for a concert. The presenter drove me around and showed me the city. We came to a very beautiful club with a sign outside, saying: "No Jews, No Blacks, No dogs."

BPO: That must have offended you.

DB: Of course. But what I mean to say is: We have already made certain improvements. It is not enough, there are still many things that can be improved, but not everything is negative. I mean, the problem is that we live at a different speed. Everything has to happen faster, everything is influenced by the moment, and, therefore, we sometimes do not take the time to see the developments. Since the second half of the twentieth century, our civilization tends more and more toward specialization. And that is not good. When I was a child, one went to the doctor, and it did not matter if he was an orthopedist or a surgeon or something else; he could do everything. Today, one goes to a different doctor for every little thing. And a specialist is somebody who knows more and more about less and less. And exactly this is—from a human point of view—the crux: We very rarely are able to recognize the different aspects of a problem, because we are thinking in a too specialized way. We put the things out of their context. The organic unity, the totality, disappeared from our thinking—the ability to see connections.

BPO: Does this also apply to music?

DB: Yes, this also applies to music. One deals with musical problems in the same way as if they were independent. And then it is said, this musician has got a problem with the tempo—as if tempo were an independent phenomenon. Which it is naturally not. There is always a totality or a perfection where everything has its place: The good and the evil, the new and the tradition. Today, one tries to put everything—independent from one another—into drawers. But this is wrong. There are no independent goals. The means that one uses to reach a goal also changes the goal. For me, this is the theory of Gandhi: One cannot long for a non-violent society by using violent methods. One always has to use the right mean for a right goal. And, in addition, one can not look upon September 11 as an isolated phenomenon.

BPO: In the media it strongly escalated—as an isolated phenomenon.

DB: We have made the media.

BPO: But is it not hard to say what the cause was and what was the subsequent effect?

DB: Cause and effect, mean and goal: This is always unified, it belongs together. Sometimes I think that every generation thinks—historically and politically—as somebody who is in the puberty.

BPO: ...following the motto: You are not my friend any more. Therefore, I do not play with you anymore?

DB: Yes, exactly.

BPO: How can a musician work against this? Is it enough just to make music? Or does one have to travel around the world to proclaim the good news, like you?

DB: (laughs) I do not travel around at all. As you know, I have two positions, at the Staatsoper in Berlin and in Chicago. Five months of the year, I am in Berlin, four months in Chicago, and, in the summer, I do the Workshop in Weimar (the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra). But I am nearly not doing any guest conducting—just one or two times per season, I conduct the Berlin Philharmonic or in Vienna; that is it. But what is important to me is the question of how one makes music. One can make music just for fun, or one can long for this unity, perfection, search the connections, understand a phenomenon not as something isolated, be it tempo, melody or harmony. Everything is always connected to each other.

BPO: Does one need to have musicians like the ones you have in Berlin or in Chicago for this goal? Does one need this high quality for it?

DB: No, no. You can also have perfection on a lower level—perfection has nothing to do with technique. But today, one does not have this kind of perfection any more, because the music education in the schools is totally missing. Music is not understood as a part of the normal education, like mathematics, history, and biology. And this causes the problems that we have with the audience. We have to look artificially for a younger audience. But the normal case should be that somebody who knows something about Goethe also needs to know something about Beethoven. And somebody who knows Debussy also knows Baudelaire. In these times of specialization, the music is totally separated from the intellectual life. An example from Chicago, where there is a big Palestinian community of intellectuals with whom I have spoken several times about the problems in the Middle East. In Chicago, we have a great university, one of the best in the United States if not worldwide—The University of Chicago. But the scholars who are dealing with literature and philosophy are not interested in music at all. Though they are dealing with intellectual things and not just doing business. This separation between the intellectual, cultural world and the music is a very sad phenomenon.

BPO: Where does this come from? In the nineteenth century, everybody who listened to Beethoven and Brahms naturally read Schiller and Goethe at the same time.

DB: I think the musical education was totally different then. There was music-making in the home. And in my youth—no matter if I was in London, Paris or New York—I always knew how and where I would find partners for chamber music. Then, I even played piano trio with Nathan Milstein on the violin and an amateur doctor on the cello. That was normal. Today, something like this does not exist anymore. Which I regret.

BPO: Is it enough to change the curriculum to remedy this abuse?

DB: No, it needs political will. We need politicians who know something about it.

BPO: Which is generally not the case.

DB: Exactly. But I do not expect from politicians that they know or love the music; I just expect that they recognize the importance of music and stand up for it. The whole debate about culture and the financial part of it is understandable in that, for many intelligent and sensitive people, music is absolutely unimportant, in the sense that these people live without any contact with this music. And, especially for this reason, it is an absolutely necessary part of the work of big institutions—be it the (Berlin) Philharmonic or the Staatsoper—to present themselves open and directly. It is not enough to make great performances. One has to show that music can be something important for the listener.

BPO: Do you sometimes have doubts, in view of the diagnosis that you are making?

DB: Yes, I do. Of course. But, fortunately, despair is not a permanent condition. Otherwise, one would have to give up. Music has something totally enchanting. An example: You are in a melancholic mood. You listen to a piece of music, it sounds melancholic. You listen to the same piece in a happy mood, and suddenly the same piece sounds happy. The music has not changed, nevertheless music has the possibility, that the same person—whether it is a listener or an interpreter—can feel it every time in a totally different way. I do not envy the musician who wants the result of the rehearsals to sound similar on three consecutive evenings because he has a very poor existence. The greatest thing about music is that one learns and gets on and analyses; that one thinks and that one feels. Every day, we start again with the matter, i..e. the sound, with hopefully a bit more experience, a bit more knowledge, a few more clues, let us say: with the results of different observations. This is the especially amazing thing about music. And it should be the same for the listener. Look: An orchestra member who sits there and thinks— "I am playing the 'Eroica' for the 179th time now and I know every part of it," —he does not take very much from the music and he can not give much. The same applies to the listener. It is this mixture of experience and spontaneity: this is the greatest gift that the phenomenon of sound gives to us. It is noticeable physically, but it is temporary; one can always start again. There are things that are just spiritual and others that are just physical. The mixture of both only shows the whole musical energy.

BPO: What role does the conductor play in this context? Does he only have to give the cue, or is there more to do to reach what you are talking about? In other words: Does he have to wake up the soul of the musician and music or does he have to force them—almost as a patriarch?

DB: It is very important to consider that it is the conductor and the orchestra member who produce the sound; this is very important for the conductor so that he does not display a ridiculous ego; but it is as important for the musicians, because otherwise they are not active anymore. When they forget that they produce the sound, they just wait for cues coming from the conductor's podium. And in the same moment in which I am waiting for a cue, I begin to react instead of acting. It is the happiest moment, when the cue comes from two sources at the same time. One gives and absorbs. Absolutely natural. It is like breathing in and out. The conductor surely can do a lot. He can educate, destroy, encourage, inspire. But he is dependent on the quality and the will of all who are involved.

BPO: How are things at the Berlin Philharmonic, which you know since half an eternity?

DB: Yes. I gave my debut with the orchestra in 1964 as a soloist. I conducted the Philharmonic for the first time in 1969 with the Fourth Symphony of Schumann; Haydn's C Minor Symphony; and with Clifford Curzon playing the Fourth Piano Concerto by Beethoven.

BPO: Since then, many things have changed. Since Claudio Abbado's start, for example, approximately 80 new musicians have joined the orchestra. How has the understanding of music, how has the sound of the Philharmonic changed?

DB: The question has to do with the whole topic of education. Not with the technical quality of the musicians. Many of them play their instrument better today than their colleagues from thirty, forty years ago. But that is not the point. Music education was different at that time. It was based on harmony, not in a philosophical, but in a purely musical meaning...

BPO: ...musical analysis...

DB: Exactly. That means: A young musician was hired into the second violins and had to play a "b." He knew exactly where this "b" was in context. Maybe he did not know it precisely in a scientific way, but he had an instinct for the harmony. Today, the young musicians receive this much less of this kind of musical education. Their education is based on other elements: on virtuosity, on sound, on style, sometimes on musicological terms. All of that is important. But all of this is not based on harmony. If the conversation turns to historical performance practice, for example, one talks a lot about tempo, articulation, sound as color, the question "vibrato: yes or no?", the material of the strings. But one rarely talks about harmony. About the harmonic tension, that means: about the vertical pressure of the chord against the horizontal line. It is the same in history. One experiences history from day to day, but on one day, something very special happens. It happens vertically. Today, one concentrates much more on the linear part of it. The progress. And suddenly something like September 11 happens. It is as if one had played a single melody, and suddenly there is something like a huge chord full of tension; one feels it.

Back to the music: When somebody joined the Berlin Philharmonic in the past, with a great sense for harmony and knowledge, there was also the conviction: In our orchestra, this is played that way and not differently. This does not exist anymore. One plays the "b" —beautifully, in the right way, piano, short, long, expressive—but one just plays it. This uniqueness that I was talking about is hard to keep. And this is nothing old-fashioned, nothing that is just connected to history, but something that is important for a large part of the music. Carefully speaking, it has become much thinner today. There are just a few orchestras that have musical uniqueness, and the Berlin Philharmonic is surely one of those orchestras. But one must not lose it.

BPO: This sounds as if you would fear that exactly this will happen.

DB: No no. I say this because I am aware that the young colleagues enter the orchestra with a different education, with a different educational background. And when so many young musicians come, one has to be attentive. And, at the same time, always renew.

BPO: Is this the reason why you like to include contemporary music into your concert programs at the Philharmonic, like in the current program with the piece "Panorama ciego" by Isabel Mundry?

DB: Yes, also because of that. The problem with contemporary music is that one often hears just one first performance, to which the whole world comes and talks about it, and—well—that is it. The pieces disappear into the drawer. The second and third performance, those are important because here the pieces show how they are, what kind of duration of life they can have. I premiered the Mundry piece with the Berlin Philharmonic at the "Pfingst-Festtage" a few years ago, and now I do it again, because it is a great piece that deserves this repeat performance.

BPO: Talking about repeat performances: You are also playing Mozart's piano concertos with the Philharmonic again and again. Is this so you remember yourself or to renew this love?

DB: You know, there are pieces or composers that one performs five to ten times and puts them aside afterwards. And there are pieces or composers that one puts aside already after the first or second time. And then there are pieces or composers that one is accompanied by throughout the whole life, by which one wants to be accompanied. For me, Mozart is one of them. I gave my first concert with orchestra at the age of eight. That was in Buenos Aires in 1950. I played the same piano concerto by Mozart that I am playing now with the Philharmonic: the concerto in A Major, K. 488. I am more and more—but each time in a different way—fascinated by this piece. I want to have it with me. By a lucky coincidence, the Berlin Philharmonic and I found a kind of osmosis about twenty years ago in how we want to play the Mozart concertos. That is why I play them regularly with the orchestra.

BPO: Is it an advantage to be conductor and soloist in these performances at the same time?

DB: With an orchestra that does not only play but also listens well and that is involved in the interpretation, this is a very big advantage.

BPO: In the same concerts, you are conducting four "Spanish" pieces by Maurice Ravel—the "Rhapsodie Espagnole," the "Pavane," "Alborada del gracioso," and the "Boléro." This does not look like a chance.

DB: That is right and for me it is not unimportant. The selected pieces form a collection of pretty, little pieces of jewelry. They are—as you said—all Spanish orchestral pieces by Ravel. I already did them with the Philharmonic several years ago. Those were great evenings. Taken in the whole, it is like a big Spanish symphony. Particularly since the Boléro gets an added dimension at the end of this Spanish symphony. The Rhapsodie marks the first movement, the Pavane serves—so to speak—as the slow movement, the Alborada as the Scherzo. This fits wonderfully together.

I am not someone who tries to understand the music of a composer essentially through his biography; I don't believe in that very much. But the Spanish pieces by Ravel have—in addition to their already extraordinary colourful qualities and art of instrumentation—an emotional context. It is maybe due to the fact that Ravel spoke Spanish so well and that his mother was Basque. In his Spanish inspired pieces, I feel a kind of perfection and greatness that is nearly unique.

BPO: So, you are sure to receive the final applause. But what is remarkable about this: You always stand in the middle of the orchestra. A symbolic act?

DB: Well, you know, I can stand alone on the podium when I play my piano recitals. Here, I see myself as a part of the orchestra. I take this absolutely for granted.

BPO: Talking about piano recitals: In 2000, you celebrated your 50th anniversary of performing with a piano recital in Buenos Aires that did not want to come to an end. What does a man think when he comes back to the place of his debut 50 years later, and the audience is at his feet? Can one bear so much admiration?

DB: (roars with laughter) In this context, I want to tell you a story. After the concert, an old man came to me, said thank you, congratulated me, and said: "I am so happy to be here today because today is my birthday. I turned 97." And I asked him like a fool if he had also been there 50 years ago. And he said: "No, then, I was 47 years old and I had a party." (laughs again) To be serious: I am not someone who looks back. For example, I never listen to my old recordings. But, of course, this concert touched me. It was an important point. I was very happy to be back in Buenos Aires, like the culprit who returns to the scene of the crime. And, of course, there was a special kind of sentimentality. But I am not at the same point yet like the famous Russian violinist Mischa El'man. He gave his first violin recital at the age of five—that was back in 1896. When he turned 75, he not only celebrated his birthday but also his 70th anniversary of performing. And a journalist, I think from The New York Times, asked him: "Please tell us, Mr. El'man, how has everything changed when you think back to your first concert 70 years ago?" El'man answered: "It has not changed at all. People were saying then: 'For his age, he plays very well.' And, today, they are saying exactly the same."


— Jürgen Otten

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