Wagner, Israel und die Palästinenser

19 Sep, 2010

Es gibt in der Geschichte vielleicht keinen zweiten Komponisten, der so offensichtlich unvereinbare Elemente in seinen Werken zu vereinigen suchte. Die Eigenschaften, die Wagners Anhänger begeistern, sind oft dieselben, die seine Gegner abstoßen, wie zum Beispiel sein Hang zu Extremen in jeder kompositorischen Hinsicht. So sehr er die Harmonie und die Form der Oper bis zur Belastungsgrenze ausdehnte, blieb er trotzdem stets äußerst ökonomisch in der Umsetzung seiner musikalischen Vorstellungen. …

Tags: Wagner

Journal

On Beethoven and Schönberg: Audible Fingerprints

19 Jan, 2010

One might ask why Beethoven and Schönberg should be performed on the same program. Both produced great masterpieces; Beethoven’s works have enriched the lives of millions of people for the last 200 years and Schönberg is well on his way to becoming one of the most accepted 20th century composers. Yet their significance goes beyond even the quality of the masterpieces they bequeathed us: both Beethoven and Schönberg are veritable …

Tags: Beethoven Schoenberg

Journal

Three Suggestions for President Obama in 2010

16 Dec, 2009

The Israeli/Palestinian conflict is one of the most important and urgent conflicts of our time. Neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians have convinced the world that they feel an urgent need to make peace: the Israelis are primarily concerned with their security and the Palestinians want justice. Israelis must be consciously confronted by the devastating effects of the occupation of Palestinian territory and Israeli settlements on the future of both …

Journal

On the Palestinian Cultural Festival in Jerusalem

19 Oct, 2009

The Palestinian Cultural Festival recently declared Jerusalem “the capital of Arabic culture for 2009.” The Jerusalem police recently arrested twenty people attempting to organize the festival. In the past I have often been vocal about the injustice of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory and the ongoing creation of Israeli settlements. The mere injustice of occupying a land and its people can only lead to a never-ending cycle of more …

Journal

Dankesrede für die Moses Mendelssohn medaille

19 Oct, 2009

Es ist eine große und besondere Ehre für mich, heute die Moses-Mendelssohn-Medaille in Empfang zu nehmen. Moses Mendelssohn steht für einen jüdisch geprägten Universalismus, dessen Ideen mir sehr nahestehen. Zu seinen Lebzeiten war die Integration einer Minderheit in Deutschland, damals der Juden, schon ein heiß umstrittenes Thema. Mendelssohn spielte dabei eine Schlüsselrolle nicht zuletzt dadurch, daß er gemeinsam mit dem Dichter Naphtali Wessely Teile der Bibel in die deutsche Sprache …

Tags: Mendelssohn

Journal

On Conducting the New Year’s Day Concert with the Vienna Philharmonic

19 Oct, 2009

Before conducting the New Year’s Day concert in Vienna recently, I had often performed some of the works included on the program as encores while on tour with the Vienna Philharmonic, but I had never before conducted a whole program of waltzes and polkas. It occurred to me as I was learning the program how lucky I was to have played so many short pieces as a pianist, because a …

Tags: Strauss Wiener Philharmoniker

Journal

Moses Mendelssohn Medal Acceptance Speech

19 Sep, 2009

It is a great and special honor for me to receive the Moses Mendelssohn medal today. Moses Mendelssohn stands for a Judaism-inspired universalism whose ideas I share. During his lifetime, the integration of a minority in Germany, then the Jews, was already a heated topic of discussion in which Mendelssohn played a major role. One of his contributions to the issue of integration was his translation of parts of the …

Journal

Mahler Interview for Universal Edition

Interview conducted by Wolfgang Schaufler for Universal Edition Wien, 27.4.2009 Mr. Barenboim, do you remember when you heard for the first time the music of Gustav Mahler? Barenboim: Not exactly. I remember…

Tags: Mahler

Journal

Gaza and the New Year

1 Jan, 2009

I have just three wishes for the coming year. The first is for the Israeli government to realize once and for all that the Middle Eastern conflict cannot be solved by military means. The second is for Hamas to realize that its interests are not served by violence, and that Israel is here to stay; and the third is for the world to acknowledge the fact that this conflict is …

Journal

The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra at the United Nations, 15.12.2008

15 Dec, 2008

The sovereign independent republic of the West-Eastern Divan, as I like to call it, began as an unpredictable experiment in 1999. Over the years, it has grown into an example of how Middle Eastern society could function under the best of circumstances. Our musicians have gone through the painful process of learning to express themselves while simultaneously listening to the narrative of their counterparts. I cannot imagine a better way …