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Before beginning with an opera at the Colón, the Argentine master discusses the repertoire he's going to conduct and also talks about politics
Barenboim explains why he's going to see Tristán and Isolda
0:48 [19659004] Hay Customs of Buenos Aires
Daniel Barenboim
does not lose. One of them is to buy alfajores for all the musicians of the orchestra who comes to direct. He has done other years with the Divan Orchestra and this time with the Staatskapelle Berlin.
We go under the drizzle at the Little Colón and, after an investigation, the teacher, with the score of Tristán and Isolda under his direction. 150 alfajores. While we drink coffee, we watch the last minutes of the match between Brazil and Belgium. Barenboim's disappointment has no mitigating factor. Belgian goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois covers one last ball. "There is no South American left!", He laments. As for Argentina, he can not explain (no one can, not even him, who knows everything) what happens to Messi in the national team.
But smart people are the ones who can move from one subject to the other speed and never fail in sharpness. Between one thing and another, the maestro tells the rediscovery that he made of Arturo Toscanini after reading Toscanini: Musician of Conscience, the biography of Harvey Sachs. "I would give anything for listening to the Italian version of Wagner's Lohengrin, which Caruso was singing in 1904 in Buenos Aires, directed by Toscanini."
It is clear that Richard Wagner is the subject, and this for a crucial reason: Tristán and Isolda will also be recorded by fire as the title with which Barenboim directed the opera for the first time at the Teatro Colón. This is not everything. The teacher will also perform the four symphonies of Johannes Brahms, rival of Wagner in the nineteenth century, Images, Debussy (a hundred years after his death) and The Consecration of Spring, by Igor Stravinsky, in which will imply another beginning: his in the CCK symphony hall. But the first thing is Tristan
. It is said that Tristan and Isolde are an opera about love, but it seems rather than it is about death. The consumption of love between Tristan and Isolde only happens in death. Do you think that, master?
-Absolutely. The two most famous German works in the world are Tristan and Isolde, and Fidelio, by Beethoven. From my point of view, both are poorly understood. From Fidelio, it is thought that it is a political job: prisoner, cruelty and all that. But Fidelio is the opera of love. On the other hand, the main theme of Tristan and Isolde is death.
– Wagner's position in history seems extremely complex. It was almost a European phenomenon that almost nothing came out unscathed.
– There are composers who have written beautiful music and without which we would be very poor. [Felix] Mendelssohn, for example. But they have not changed the historical development of music. On the other hand, Hector Berlioz, a composer in my way of seeing less perfect than Mendelssohn, had a huge influence on the story. Wagner, on the other hand, has brought all the past. His great influences were Beethoven, Weber, Schumann, Berlioz and Liszt, pretty much … And at the same time he was showing the way to the future. Not only that: he forced the composers who came later, either to follow him or to oppose him fanatically. Those who followed were Bruckner, Mahler, Schönberg, Berg … and those who did not, especially Stravinsky. Claude Debussy went from one field to the other. The intellectual and creative force of this man can not be compared. Of course, this does not mean that he is "the greatest composer". I do not speak in these terms.
-Although we did not think of Wagner as a director, he wrote a very decisive essay on the art of direction. How important is this position? And, how much do they influence?
Tristan … Harmonic hierarchies to tell the dynamics and all the rest?
-I would like to add something else. The key is chromaticism. This did not exist before Wagner to such a degree. The chromaticism creates a situation of ambiguity. That in life is not considered something positive: an ambiguous one is someone who does not know if he wants tea or coffee, whether he likes men or the women. But in music ambiguity gives extra tension because there is no pre-warning of where the agreement will go. The second measure of the Prelude
Tristán has this agreement that can go in fifty thousand directions. And by holding it, it creates the ambiguity of the resolution. The chromaticism exacerbates it. There is another one that is not resolved either. And that for four and a half hours of music. Wagner understood that the three most powerful elements of tonal music (melody, harmony and rhythm) was harmony.
-You once said, and it is something that is often overlooked, that the greatest influence of Claude Debussy were the Mallarme and Baudelaire poets. But they were, significantly, Wagnerian fanatics. How do you see the relationship between Debussy and Wagner?
– The vast majority of music lovers and French artists have a very complex relationship with Wagner. In the first place, he is the most famous composer for many of them. And we must not forget that musical life in Paris has no logic.
The consecration of the spring was created in 1913 and the first piano concerto of Brahms took place in 1936! It is something extraordinary. All the nineteenth-century composers hated Brahms and were hypnotized by Wagner, and that with a certain desire. For the size. In France, there is a lot of miniature, but there is nothing like Wagner. I was running a lot Debussy; several cycles of symphonic work. Also
The martyrdom of San Sebastián and
Pelleas and Melisande . In both there is an impressive Wagnerian influence. The more I occupy Debussy, the more I realize that he is not a composer: there are four or five composers. Debussy near Wagner, Debussy near Stravinsky, Debussy near Fauré, etc. I think Debussy was completely fascinated by Wagner. I feel privileged because I play the piano and I lead. The piano work of Debussy is essential to have a clear idea of his creation. An orchestra conductor who does not know the
Preludes for piano and
Studies does not have the right to run Debussy. This is immediately noticeable when a director only knows of a composer's work. When I hear a director directing the
Berlioz's Fantastic Symphony, I realize immediately if it's the only work he's known about Berlioz, which is usually the case. They have no points of support.
– And what about the tension between Brahms's alleged conservatism and that of Wagner? In his article "Brahms, the Progressive", Arnold Schönberg seemed to settle the question. What do you think?
– It is Schönberg who recognized the modernism of Brahms. And the work of Schönberg is only possible as a result of the work of Brahms, on the one hand, and Wagner, on the other hand. Yes, that is Schönberg who made the synthesis. I mean: in true romanticism, there is already anarchy rather than freedom. In Brahms, there is no lawlessness. This is certain. At Wagner, there is a lot of anarchy. For me, the greatest director of Brahms was Fritz Busch, whom I only know by recordings. Busch found freedom without losing the structure. I remember that when I met my first wife, Jacqueline du Pre, Otto Klemperer came and we were playing a Brahms sonata. He said: I have never heard Brahms with such pbadion. This is not north of Germany … very curious. Brahms is very free, but it is never excessive.
– I know you liked Wim Wenders' documentary about Pope Francis. A few days ago, the pope met Emmanuel Macron …
– And what did they talk about?
– Refugees, as planned. But it is an issue closely related to growing euroscepticism, which populism benefits. There seem to be three forces that, perhaps unintentionally articulated, work for this problem. I mean the pope, Angela Merkel and Macron. What do you think of each one of them?
-Macron played the piano. It's just why I have some sympathy. When I met him, it was during a concert in Salzburg, where I played with Marta Argerich. He said that he was playing the piano. "And what was playing?" I asked him. "My favorite composer is Schumann," he said. "But," he continued, "he was also playing
The years of pilgrimage by Liszt. "" Then I played well! "I say, and he says," I did not tell him I played them well, I told him I played them. ":" These are works of extreme difficulty. "He looked at me like he thought: and what will he tell me? I said," I I am very jealous. When I played
The years of pilgrimage had a huge competition. Claudio Arrau, Alfred Brendel … And you have no competition. "How? He said, "I would like to hear Putin or Merkel play.
The Years of Pilgrimage " Macron had the charm of laughter, and he is a very cultured man, and Merkel, on the other hand, has a leadership experience that no one has, in More than being an outstanding figure.He thought long term, but the world is moving much faster now, one of its main strengths is not to make a public decision as long as it is essential to to make it public, I know it because I do the same in music.Just at the right time, but it is even more important not to make a decision when it is not essential, it is the right thing to do. Merkel's art which also applies to music and in 2015 everyone congratulated her for the refugees.We must forget that at the end of the term, most of the great leaders were more popular abroad only in their own country, and the pope, on the other hand, represents something very special to me. rity, it's m and weird in a public person. I believe that he really says what he thinks and thinks what he says. Those are two different things. There is something that really hurts me: the lack of resolution of the conflict between Israel and Palestine. Everyone is talking about the resolution of two states. And I ask: where is the second state? I do not understand why the world can not recognize Palestine as a state …
– Is universalism still important?
-I'm going to say something: to play a piece of a composer, you have to know the language he spoke it's why I've never played janácek, that i've like, because I do not speak Czech.
-You have sometimes said that the language spoken by a composer influences what he or she composes. If you were composer …
-In Buenos Aires!
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