Daniel Barenboim, born 1942, is a citizen of Argentina, Israel, Palestine, and Spain. He was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, of Argentinian-Jewish parents. He started piano lessons at age 5 with his mother, continuing to study with his father, who remained his only teacher. He gave his first concert at age 7. He and Martha Argerich were childhood friends in Buenos Aires. In 1952, the family moved to Israel. Two years later, his parents took him to Salzburg to take part in Igor Markevitch’s conducting classes. During that summer, he also met and play for Wilhelm Furtwangler, who has remained a central musical influence and ideal for Barenboim. In 1955, he studied harmony and composition with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. He made his debut as a conductor in 1966 in London. As a pianist, in the beginning of his career Barenboim concentrated on the music of the Classical era, such as Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert, as well as some Romantic composers, including Brahms and Mendelssohn. He recorded many chamber works, especially in collaboration with his first wife, Jacquelin du Pre, Itzhak Perlman, and Pinchas Zuckerman. In 2015 Barenboim unveiled a new concert grand piano, in conjunction with Chris Maene and with support from Steinway & Sons. The piano features straight parallel strings, instead of the conventional diagonally-crossed strings of a modern Steinway. He is currently 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. He 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 of Palestinian territories. I listened to a video of Barenboim, called “5 Minutes On...Debussy – Clair de Lune,”, in which he played the composition, but stopped at various points to explain what to listen for in the piece, before playing it in its entirety.
