Daniel Barenboim reflects on his return to CSO, 12 years later

It has been 12 years since conductor Daniel Barenboim, who was established before the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, from which he led as music director from 1991 to 2006 (and as music director designate beginning in 1989).

That's a remarkably long absence considering his deep ties to the CSO – which he first guest-conducted in 1970 – and the profundities of his relationship with an orchestra. For during Barenboim's tenure, he appointed 40 musicians to the CSO, including nine principals.

So when Barenboim returns to lead the whole in subscription concerts Nov. 1-3, one question will be foremost among many: Why has he stayed away?

"Because when I finished, I finished – I do not really believe in going back," says the maestro, 75, who holds the position of general music director of the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin for life.

"I closed the chapter. I do not know – there was no special reason. But now when Mr. Muti asked me to come, I said, 'Why not?' Adds Barenboim, CSO music director Riccardo Muti referencing.

"When I started conducting (the CSO) in 1970, I was not exactly full of experience, and this was a fantastic thing for me. The orchestra liked me very much, and I adored them, and I could learn a lot of things. … It's a very long relationship. Many reasons and many memories that make me very happy to go back. "

So the meeting will be significant on conductor, CSO musicians and hearing. Regardless of how one badessed Barenboim's podium methods, there was no question that he transformed the whole thing. The brilliant, rhythmically driven, often tightly wound performance of Georg Solti – Barenboim's kinetic predecessor as music director – Gave way to a warmer, more free-flowing lyricism.

As form Tribune clbadical music criticism John von Rhein put it in 2006, when Barenboim was stepping down, "Any recording of his achievements in Chicago must be acknowledged in his extraordinary success at a Solti Chicago Symphony at Barenboim Chicago Symphony." Barenboim, added von Rhein, left "the orchestra at the peak of their collaboration. We may never know why he has chosen to do so now. But we do not know one thing: Daniel Barenboim will be greatly missed. "

The feeling has been mutual, with the conductor eager to discover how the orchestra has developed during his years away.

"I'm going with a lot of sentimental feeling, but also a lot of curiosity," says Barenboim. "The woodwind section is practically new to me. I'm looking forward. "

Looking back, how does Barenboim view his CSO tenure today?

"I tell you – you do not need me to say it was a great orchestra – the whole world knows," he says.

"But let me tell you what was unique about it, and that was the professional ethic of the orchestra. I have never encountered that in another orchestra.

"And I always remember Bud Herseth," Barenboim adds, referring to the CSO's late, leading trumpet legendary, Adolph Herseth.

"After he was there 40-something years, he never made a mistake. Then we did a concert performance of 'Elektra,' which he did not know, "says Barenboim, quoting the Richard Strauss opera.

"And there was one entrance in 'Elektra' where it is not obvious where to come in. And he came in a bar too soon in the rehearsal. I did not say anything.

"Later he says: 'I see you are not happy.'

"I said: 'It does not matter.'

"I finally showed it to him, and he did it perfectly.

"And he came to see me afterward. He said: "I never wanted, nor do I want to be in the future, because I think it is possible, because I think it is my job to be able to me: A little more like this, softer, louder, whatever it is. But I want to avoid being corrected. This is my pride. '

"And I thought that was the most wonderful thing we could hear from a musician."

But there is another factor that Barenboim also believes has distinguished the CSO from its peers. And he has an intriguing way of describing it.

"Chicago Symphony is one of the few orchestras that when you stood in front of it, you felt it was something that was – how shall I say? – from the Chicago Symphony gut, "says Barenboim.

"I had tremendous respect for Solti, for instance – tremendous musician, great conductor. But there were some musical things that I thought otherwise. … So whenever I try to change something in all the years in Chicago, I thought to myself: Is this something that comes from the influence of one conductor, in this case Solti? Or is this from the gut Chicago Symphony?

"And if I replied with the second response, I would not touch. Because we come and go, but the orchestra stays. "

Barenboim, who will conduct the CSO in Czech dialect Bedrich Smetana's tone poem "Ma Vlast" ("My Country"), also will lead the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra in Richard Strauss' "Don Quixote" and Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony in Orchestra Hall on Nov. 5. The set grew out of the West-Eastern Divan workshop that Barenboim and the late Palestinian writer / scholar Edward Said created in 1999 to bring together Arab and Israeli musicians. In this orchestra, instrumentalists on the opposite sides of a way-far intractable conflict play together.

A noble idea, but one wonders how much difference it has made in the torments of the Middle East.

"The project was never a political project," says Barenboim, who was born in Argentina in 1942 and moved to his family to Israel a decade later.

"People think it is, and the people have already described it as an orchestra for peace, which of course it can not be. Peace does not need an orchestra. Peace needs justice for the Palestinians and security for Israel, put in a nutshell.

"What this orchestra can be said to be that of the narrative – outside the music – that the narrative on the other side is something that must be respected. You do not have to agree with it, but you have to respect it.

"From this point of view, it is a huge success, because I think every musician has made a difference.

"Musically, it has become a wonderful orchestra. The sad part, "adds Barenboim," is that it has a message – the message of dialogue, if you want – (that) has not really impregnated the area.

"And we have many admirers in Israel and many detractors, and the same proportion in Palestine," observed Barenboim.

"I would be very worried if we only had admirers on one side and detractors on the other."

Daniel Barenboim conducts the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at 8 pm Nov. 1, 1:30 pm Nov. 2 and 8 pm Nov. 3. He leads the West Divan Orchestra at 7:30 pm Nov. 5. In Orchestra Hall at Symphony Center, 220 S. Michigan Ave .; ticket prices vary; 312-294-3000 gold www.cso.org.