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Interview with Daniel Barenboim
Rondo: Mr. Barenboim, can you imagine returning to your
roots some day, perhaps spending all your time at the piano?
Daniel Barenboim: In essence, I'm already doing that.
I have reduced conducting to a minimum. You know, in addition to my
home orchestras in Berlin and Chicago, I currently only conduct the
Vienna Philharmonic and the Berlin Philharmonic. And I'm once again
practicing the piano a great deal. Which, by the way, has become more
difficult than in the past. The transition from conducting to playing
piano doesn't happen as quickly anymore.
Rondo: You have now been general music director
of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden for twelve years. Have you achieved
your personal goals, in particular with regard to the sound of the
Staatskapelle?
Mr. Barenboim: Yes. Oh, yes.
Rondo: Is the recording of the four Schumann symphonies
a milestone for you, or only a way-station?
Mr. Barenboim: Everything in life is a way-station. When I
think about Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, which I have been conducting
almost every year since 1991, I'm seeing it; I'm hearing it. We actually
started down the path with two great cycles as part of our main repertoire—the
Wagner operas and the Beethoven symphonies. The Schumann idea came
about as a result of a conversation in Vienna, as we presented the
Beethoven cycle there; all of the piano concerti and the symphonies.
The director of the music society asked me: "What do you want to do
next time? Brahms?? My impression has always been to couple Brahms
with, for example, Schoenberg or Schumann, and so we settled on Schumann.
That is, a contemporary who did it differently. And, then, we presented
the four Schumann and the four Brahms symphonies on four nights in
Vienna, as a sort of double cycle, in the combination of one-one,
two-two, three-three, four-four.
Rondo: And what conclusion did you reach after this
dissection?
Barenboim: The difference between Schumann and Brahms, personally
and orchestrally, is more interesting than what they have in common.
Schumann is a very different world.
Rondo: But what is fundamentally different about
Schumann? What makes him unique? And why does the Fourth Symphony,
although composed before the Second and Third, segregate itself so
clearly from the rest of the framework?
Mr. Barenboim: In the Fourth, we sense the spirit of Wagner
more clearly than in the other symphonies.
Rondo: But even in the Third, Tannhäuser already
shines through, in the fourth movement.
Mr. Barenboim: Yes, of course. And Schubert in the first movement.
For me, the four symphonies are like an anthology of distinct types.
I don't know if one can cloak it in words. Somehow it's clumsy, self-conscious,
external to the main idea. Schumann's symphonies are like a human
being who doesn't quite fit into society, who thinks differently,
who dresses differently. I think what essentially separated Schumann
from Brahms is this: He is, far more than Brahms, a composer at the
extreme.
Rondo: Schumann, as it were, throws a curve that
always surprises us.
Mr. Barenboim: Yes. It's strange, but the orchestration in
Schumann's case has often suffered from the fact that the interpreters
thought it had to sound like Brahms. But it's a completely different
language. What occurs to me is that the more removed we are from a
time in history-the more removed we are from a particular epoch-the
more we see what the people had in common, and therefore the less
that differentiated them. A further problem of the poor reputation
of Schumann as a composer of symphonies is that we have not properly
read the musical "diary" of this composer, in the case of Schumann
that means the piano pieces. A conductor who only views Schumann's
symphonies from the orchestral perspective will only understand the
works to a limited extent. One needs to think of the symphonies from
the point of view of piano pieces, as with Debussy. The associations
are significant. Otto Klemperer, for example, believed very strongly
in-and agitated himself over-the fact that conductors have no culture
and only know what they themselves conduct. Distressingly, this doesn't
mean that one can conduct Schumann's symphonies better if one knows
his piano pieces well. Nevertheless, one then has a certain head start.
Rondo: Let's deal with the programming of the works.
Although Schumann later deleted the appellations to the First and
Third symphonies, that is, "Spring" and "Rheinish," is there a certain
poetic intent to be recognized? And does that really mean, in Schumann's
case, the program? Can we read it?
Mr. Barenboim: I don't know. I believe it's unimportant. The
problem is that music is not just a collection of tones and sounds.
Music aspires to far more, in the sense of what Adorno said about
Beethoven's symphonies: that they are a conception of life. The problem
appears to me to be that this humanistic idea in music that we now
speak of basically can't be expressed in words. If we could do this,
the music wouldn't be necessary. Whether you think of spring when
you hear the B-major symphony, and I of the desert, is actually not
important. The main thing is that this music affects us as humans—emotionally
or rationally, in the best case both. How we describe, so to speak,
the feelings is less important in the final analysis. It's too bad
that today, in our politically correct society, we always expect a
message. That is not the correct disposition. Everyone must learn
to actively listen. One cannot sit in a chair with a glass of whiskey
in hand and expect that the music will transport one into another
world. The transport has to be ordered, even as it arrives, by us.
And there may be conductors who achieve much by attempting to use
imagery—I am not one of them. We awaken the associations, the
human thoughts, considerably more if we work with musical means and
in the process take subtle note of the thoughts. The impressions that
one thereby has, do not play the main role. Take, for example, Ravel's
Boléro. One person sees a single, wonderful, upward assault
in it, another experiences the fantasia of repetitiveness and this
opus has even been viewed as a piece of music alluding to coitus.
Rondo: And the Spring Symphony?
Mr. Barenboim: It contains a certain serenity and lightness.
For me, the association is with the Humoresque, op. 20 for
piano by Schumann. A similar world, a similar rhythm, similar structures
are illustrated in it. And the piece is in the same key.
Rondo: The rhythm in Schumann appears to play a
similar, relevant role as with Beethoven. How do you see this?
Barenboim: It isn't the rhythm that plays the decisive role,
it's the proper emphasis that's decisive. That is, where the emphasis
is not placed. Basically, I believe that too frequently we attempt
to solve musical problems in only one direction. In the process, everyone
practices the rhythm, the sound, the intonation, the phrasing, the
articulation—at least in tonal music one exerts influence on
the other. Why is so much spoken today of the selection of the tempo?
I do not understand this. As if tempo were an independent phenomenon.
The tempo is, however, determined by the content; we don't hear the
tempo. We hear only the content. If the tempo is proper for a specific
content, then it is correct.
Rondo: But then there would still be the
problem of the sensed and the real time
Mr. Barenboim: In this regard, I will tell you a story. As
a young man, Sergiu Celibidache heard Furtwängler's interpretation
of Beethoven's Fifth every night, and, every night, it was different,
in particular as far as the tempo was concerned. Thereupon, Celibidache
asked, "Herr Doktor Furtwängler, how do you determine the tempo?"
Furtwängler responded: "Depending on how it sounds." It took
years until I understood the deep, philosophical significance of this
remark. I believe that musicians come to terms with tempo far too
soon. One must, however, also establish the sound content to a much
greater extent. The decision on tempo is last. Only at the moment
when I comprehend the piece, the content, the sound-consequently everything
that belongs to it—do I ask the question, "What tempo suits this?"
Rondo: Schumann himself in later years corrected
the metronome information for his symphony. Did he get a different
feel for the timing?
Mr. Barenboim: No. He heard the pieces. Why is so much metronome
data by composers too rapid? Because the composer does not physically
hear the piece. When they write it they only hear it in their heads.
The weight of the sound isn't present. Imagine a poem that you learn
by heart. You read it much slower than you remember it in your head.
Another example: As I was to play number VII, the "Notation" of Pierre
Boulez, for the first time, I found the tempo indication "quarter
note = 60" in the score. To me, it appeared too rapid, I conducted
the work at "eighth note = 90"—and Boulez was satisfied. When
I asked him how that was possible. After all, he was not only a renowned
composer but also an experienced conductor, he said, "When I compose
I cook with water, when I conduct I cook with fire." Very French.
But correct. I think that's the point. One speaks of the sound as
if it were only color. But the weight of the sound is not subjective,
but rather objective. And therefore, metronome data is frequently
too rapid. For all that, what one must respect is the relationship
of the tempos to one another.
Rondo: Isn't this exactly what's more difficult
with Schumann, due to the fitful nature of the course of the music?
Mr. Barenboim: Absolutely.
Rondo: In the Fourth Symphony, it appears to me
that your interpretation is a bit too drawn-out, too emphatic. Is
a conscious attempt concealed behind this—that is, with a view
to Schumann, who once called the work a "symphonic fantasy"?
Mr. Barenboim: Yes. The feel of the tempo in the first movement
is completely different from that of the other symphonies, maybe that
is the reason. But listen to the Fourth with Furtwängler. For
Furtwängler, it is not important whether it is slower or more
rapid, whether the tempo changes itself organically or not. What is
important, and what places Furtwängler above the rest for me, is that
the musical discourse is influenced, imprinted by the harmonic tension
as with no other conductor. I will give you an example: If, in Beethoven's
Fourth Symphony, immediately after the exposition, there is a sudden
transition into a totally alien key, according to B Major, you almost
need a visa to go there, this key is so alien. Furtwängler accomplished
the transition like no other. And why? Because he was able to make
the new harmonic realization clear. To come back to Schumann's Fourth,
I believe the work moves at a very different speed harmonically. The
harmonic tensions are different, despite the chromaticism in the other
symphonies. And that is at least as important. In the Fourth, the
vertical pressure is much greater. One cannot express this with any
other sound. If one wants to experience the "Es" (E-flat) as a shock
in the course of execution for ears that are used to living in D minor,
it takes time. The tonality has to be established.
Rondo: Does the selection of the key play a leading
role in romanticism? Does it describe a certain state of being, as
was the case with Beethoven? If Salopp were asked: Would the same
tension be possible if the Fourth were in A minor?
Mr. Barenboim: I don't know. Kubelik contends certain keys
are the same as certain colors. In A minor, the piece must first be
instrumentally different. You know, I grew up with a completely different
relationship to keys. I studied harmonics and composition under Nadia
Boulanger. I was twelve years old when I had my first hour with her.
She was an older lady and appeared, to me at that time, like a museum
piece. She introduced me to the Prelude and Fugue in Es (E-flat)-minor
from volume one of the Well-Tempered Clavier and said, "Now, young
man, you will play that in A minor."
Rondo: Could you?
Mr. Barenboim: The prelude was OK. But the five-voice fugue
was hardly doable ad hoc. But Boulanger trained me that way: every
week, a prelude and fugue. This forced me to realize the harmonic
relationship independent of a specific key. I am, therefore, the wrong
person to ask about transcribability.
Rondo: Then perhaps this one. In 1841, as Schumann
first spied the light of the world in Leipzig, fifty musicians—violins
and even violas—played in the Gewandhaus Orchestra. Purists contend
that the circumstances of this performance would have to be recreated
in order to play an authentic Schumann. What do you think about that?
Mr. Barenboim: Mozart was highly impressed when, in Mannheim,
he had twenty first violins for a performance of his C Major Symphony,
No. 34. What do the purists think of that?
Rondo: A recommendation for compromise:
Would it be possible with 50 musicians?
Mr. Barenboim: Naturally. It depends on the space. In the
Palais Lobkovitz, where "Eroica" was first played, one can of course
play with six first violins. The most important thing, be it easy
or difficult, slow or fast, in the final analysis is: does the content
come through? Is the relationship between vertical pressure and horizontal
discourse correct? Just as in our lives. We speak about music as if
it were an island that lay aside the world. This is wrong. If I want
to have contact with anyone, the important thing for me is how he
lives the moments, the most important, almost historical moments.
The main issue is how one can experience these tensions and relaxations
within the harmonic world, at what intensity and speed. And can I
put the music to it such that, when I come to the last note, I can
re-experience it in its entirety. This influences my musical thinking
more than anything else.
Rondo: Apropos influence: Is Furtwängler the
role model for Schumann?
Mr. Barenboim: He is a role model for everything. That does
not mean that I imitate him. If I try to understand why he has done
a certain thing, then I am on the right path. But I use my own means.
In that regard, he is my role model for everything. You can learn
a lot more from him than from all the other conductors.
Interviewer Juergen Otten spoke with Daniel Barenboim.
January 2004.
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