Jun. 03, 2003
Evolution of his Beethoven remains a mystery to Barenboim [/b]
By David Patrick Stearns
Inquirer Music Critic
Like a comet that returns every 15 years or so, Daniel Barenboim is playing all 32 Beethoven piano sonatas again.
Although the former child-prodigy pianist has been doing so over roughly 50 of his 61 years, his career as an opera and symphony conductor have long eclipsed his keyboard activities. When he recently recorded the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1, the soloist wasn't him, but Philadelphia-based pianist Lang Lang. The latest Wagner opera recordings are ones he conducted. When portrayed in the film Hilary and Jackie - a controversial biopic of his first wife, cellist Jacqueline du Pre - he was mainly a conductor.
And that's why Barenboim is playing an all-Beethoven sonata program Thursday at the Kimmel Center, and the entire canon over several concerts at Carnegie Hall. As music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and chief of the Berlin State Opera, he doesn't touch the keyboard for up to four months at a time, and says he needs to get his fingers back into music - literally. And with so many Wagner operas in his immediate past, Barenboim, in a telephone interview from Chicago last week, seemed as curious as anyone else to see how his Beethoven had evolved.
David Patrick Stearns: I've been listening to your Beethoven recordings from your teenage years to Daniel Barenboim Live From the Teatro Colón 2000 that just came out on EMI.
Daniel Barenboim: Don't tell me they're all the same.
DPS: Anything but. There's no sense of a "Barenboim method" applied from one year to the next or from one piece to the next. There are no mannerisms.
DB: You mean I keep finding new mannerisms?
DPS:You know what I mean; every time you return to a piece, it's not a refinement over what you did before. You start from scratch.
DB: That's my philosophy of making music. As you know, I started very young. I met many of the great artists of the past and saw the dangers of that. Many of them were very great artists who made important contributions and discoveries, such as Pablo Casals. Before he came along, nobody articulated notes as clearly as he. But it's as if he found a system.
I don't want to sound mean - and this is an oversimplification - but there almost comes a point where these artists do things to prove their theory. This is where you get mannerisms.
DPS: I noticed that as a young man you reveled in the dark, Gothic side of Beethoven, but not so much as an adult.
DB:With maturity, you're more aware some moments have to be sacrificed for the totality of the organic whole. You put things more in context.
DPS: Some of your earliest recordings are having high-profile reissues. Do you worry about having the sins of your youth back on the market?
DB: If somebody gave me a copy of the disc, I'd listen out of curiosity. It was what it was. Both the good and the bad brought me to where I am today.
DPS: You recently recorded the first Tchaikovsky and Mendelssohn piano concertos with Lang Lang. He says that you really took him back to basics, looking at the score and rediscovering anew exactly what it says.
DB: He's a very serious boy. He came to Vienna, and we worked quite a lot. Then he came to Chicago to make the recording. He's an extraordinarily talented young man.
DPS: He has a big personality, a Leonard Bernstein-sized personality.
DB: The thing about Lenny is that he had a solid, meticulous knowledge of the music he conducted. It's important that Lang Lang has this kind of knowledge. Then his personality will be able to fly much more securely.
DPS: I read your autobiography, A Life in Music. It's full of great stuff, but there's nothing on your emotional life. You've been through a lot - Jacqueline du Pre's decline and death from multiple sclerosis, and the 1989 firing from Paris' Bastille Opera. Will you ever write about what all of that felt like?
DB: No. Each one of us has the right to a private life and to keep it that way.
DPS:A number of Jacqueline du Pre's live recordings have come out in the past few years - a Dvorák Cello Concerto with Sergiu Celibidache and some Brahms cello sonatas with you. Is there more to come?
DB: I think that's about it.
DPS: You obviously revisit those performances to authorize their release. What was that like?
DB:It reminded me how vividly she played, and how much I miss that she's not here.
DPS: During your Beethoven cycle in the mid-1980s, you told me you have a secret repertoire that you play just for yourself. Then, it was Enrique Granados and Bach's Goldberg Variations.
DB: I like that duality. Now, I'm playing the last two books of Albéniz's Iberia and [Bach's] Well-Tempered Clavier. I've never played the Well-Tempered Clavier complete.
DPS: You've often performed here, but you haven't guest-conducted the Philadelphia Orchestra since 1980. Why?
DB: I don't guest-conduct anywhere. I'm sorry I haven't been able to come, but I can't conduct opera, the Chicago Symphony, play piano, and guest-conduct. This is not possible.
DPS: At times, though, it seems that you tried. Over the years, you've been known as the busiest classical musician in history. Now conductor Valery Gergiev has taken the heat off you - he's even busier - but do you ever worry that your reputed restlessness colors the way your performances are heard?
DB: Frankly, I don't care. The ones with discerning ears listen and form an opinion - positive or negative - without preconceived ideas.
Contact music critic David Patrick Stearns at 215-854-4907 or dstearns@phillynews.com.
Daniel Barenboim plays four Beethoven sonatas at 8 p.m. Thursday at Kimmel Center's Verizon Hall, Broad and Spruce Streets. Tickets: $18-$67. Information: 215-893-1999 or
www.kimmelcenter.org. _________________
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