Daniel Barenboim
Daniel Barenboim
Daniel Barenboim, KBEis a pianist and conductor who is a citizen of Argentina, Israel, Palestine and Spain. He is general music director of the Berlin State Opera, and the Staatskapelle Berlin; he previously served as Music Director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris and La Scala in Milan. Barenboim is known for his work with the West–Eastern Divan Orchestra, a Seville-based orchestra of young Arab and Israeli musicians, and as a resolute critic of the Israeli occupation...
NationalityArgentinian
ProfessionPianist
Date of Birth15 November 1942
CityBuenos Aires, Argentina
Every great work of art has two faces, one toward its own time and one toward the future, toward eternity.
I would like to be a terrorist for music education - to make a complete reform, all over the world.
Beethoven's music tends to move from chaos to order, as if order were an imperative of human existence.
I liked very much when we lived in Hampstead. We would go for walks on the Heath. I liked it better than living in the centre of town.
I maintain music is not here to make us forget about life. It's also here to teach us about life: the fact that everything starts and ends, the fact that every sound is in danger of disappearing, the fact that everything is connected - the fact that we live and we die.
Beethoven was a deeply political man in the broadest sense of the word. He was not interested in daily politics, but concerned with questions of moral behaviour and the larger questions of right and wrong affecting the entire society.
I have music in my brain all the time, all sorts.
In my mother's belly, I remember not liking the tempi my father played the Beethoven Sonatas in.
When I came here, I had the feeling that I had in front of me a most wonderful high quality piece of antique furniture. It was full of dust and needed repair and polishing. I think we have removed the dust and made the repairs.