YouSaid · the spoken record

Daniel Barenboim

lines on the record: 41
first: 2006-05-07
most recent: 2006-05-07
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“This is a very difficult one, you know, because if I go by statistics, the book that I have looked at most in the last fifty years of my life, and I'm only 63, Is the ethics of Spinoza? Spinoza. Okay. And last question. We give you one luxury, which should be of no practical value. You can't have a boat to escape or anything like that. Well, it's your piano, isn't it? The piano is not a luxury. But give me a piano and a mattress that I can put on it to sleep. Why not? Daniel Berenboem, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you.”
2006-05-07 · Desert Island Discs · Daniel Barenboim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, there it was the harps accord and that was Vander Landovska playing it. She's playing. The D major few from Book one of Barkswell Temple Clavier. That was recorded in 1954, you might like to know that. I have three more questions for you. One is if you could only take one of those eight records to this desert island, which one would it be? Well, I have to be very honest with you. So I wouldn't take any record at the desert island. I would take scores that I can read them, but I wouldn't take any of these records. I only did this out of politeness to you because this is what the program is about. But basically I enjoy more reading this score than listening to records. All right. We give you the complete works of Shakespeare. I don't know if you want those either. We give you the Bible. But we also allow you one book of your own choice. Which would that be? I mean book to read. A book to read.”
2006-05-07 · Desert Island Discs · Daniel Barenboim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Tell me about the last piece of music then, and we'll get this one over. Come on. Well, the last record is the D major fugue from Book 1 of the well-tempered clavier played on the harpsichord by Wandalandovska because that shows you that it can be stylistically very free and very grand and has the ability to have so much more color than most harpsical players manage to get today even if it is stylistically not according to the rules that we imagine existed in Bakht's time. As you can see, this harpsichord playing has nothing to do with this wonderfully witty description of the harpsich sound ascribed to Sir Thomas Beacham, who is claimed to have says that he hated the harpsichord because it reminded him of the sound of two cats copulating on a tin roof.”
2006-05-07 · Desert Island Discs · Daniel Barenboim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Away, and what about your health in general? Because there have been reports in the newspapers earlier this year that you had to cancel a couple of concerts and you weren't very well. Do you worry, I mean, you are a man who leads life to the full. I mean, I've seen you smoking the cigars. I mean, do you worry about that? No. No, I don't worry about it. And my health is absolutely perfect. I had committed, if you want the stupidity not to have a medical checkup for 15 years, which you shouldn't do at my age, 63. 63. I'll remember that. And I found myself with a very high blood pressure and was taken to the hospital with that. But I feel now for over two weeks, absolutely in perfect health. So you're not going to slow down at all, are you? Yes. I might do less interviews.”
2006-05-07 · Desert Island Discs · Daniel Barenboim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But I knew that I could only do that for a certain amount of time. And I said 10 years. But tell me about the fingers. When they're nearly sixty four years old, do they get stiff? Do you worry that they'll get stiff? Is there any arthritis in there or are they? Absolutely not. They're as supple as ever. Absolutely not. But you know, the muscles are 63 only. It's 64 at the end of this year. But you said the end of the year. We're all in April, you know, I mean really. But obviously the muscles at 63. I can't speak about 64 because I'm not there yet. It's far too far away for me to even envisage what that might feel like. But at 63 the muscles obviously don't work like when at 30, let alone at 15 or 20. And I find that I need more time to get myself in shape, to play the piano especially after I haven't played.”
2006-05-07 · Desert Island Discs · Daniel Barenboim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Edwin Fisher playing the C sharp major prelude from Bach's well tempered clavier book two and that was recorded in the mid-30s and is considered I think to be the earliest complete performance on record. Very well possible. You've recorded it yourself of course book one and book two and you've performed that recently in Paris and in London you're giving up Chicago as I said this summer you're 64 later this year. I mean does this mean you're going to return to the piano much more? You're going to stop the commuting. Get off the podium more often and get them sit down at the piano. I would like to play more. You know when I took on directorship of the state opera in Berlin I was already music director in Chicago and I knew that I could only do that for a certain amount of time because otherwise I would have to stop playing the piano because I didn't have enough time to practice and to keep the manual aspect of playing. How much do you worry about that? I don't worry about that.”
2006-05-07 · Desert Island Discs · Daniel Barenboim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Record number seven is Edwin Fisher playing the C sharp major prelude from book two of Bach's well-tempered clavier. He became an example for me because he was the main propagator if you want, if it can be expressed this way of the art of playing and conducting simultaneously. He was both a pianist and a conductor and he played and conducted Mozart concertos when I was a child and that's where I got the example.”
2006-05-07 · Desert Island Discs · Daniel Barenboim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If you call that politically yes, I refrain from calling it political because we don't want political approval. We don't have no contact with any governments, none whatsoever. But it is a project which recognizes to us to Edward Saeed and to me are inevitable conclusions. The first one being that the destinies of the Israelis and the Palestinians are inextricably linked, whether we like it or not. And secondly, that there is no military solution to the conflict. It gives us the weapons to fight what we consider one of the worst elements in this conflict, and that is ignorance.”
2006-05-07 · Desert Island Discs · Daniel Barenboim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, first of all, this is not a political project. I know. And you always say that when I say that people smile benevolently. But isn't it?”
2006-05-07 · Desert Island Discs · Daniel Barenboim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The next record is an excerpt of surances by Pierre Boulez, a work of great sonic imagination. It is not only deeply thought or deeply felt, but a real kalidoscopic pleasure for the ear.”
2006-05-07 · Desert Island Discs · Daniel Barenboim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The music that interests me today is the music written by composers who first of all hear what they write and are not only using it as an intellectual exercise and also composes that you feel that they have a knowledge of what has come before them. And remember, you know, it only needed one Christopher Columbus to discover America and that many people behave since then as if they have done so, but it was already done. And this is the difference between Boulez and Elliot Carter's music and so many other composers today.”
2006-05-07 · Desert Island Discs · Daniel Barenboim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, curiosity, I would think, is more correct word. And in fact, I think we have to thank Pierre Boulez that he made this music accessible, first of all by playing it, and secondly by playing it with such a degree of clarity and transparency. And that opened a whole new vista for me. And it gave me... Did you eat?”
2006-05-07 · Desert Island Discs · Daniel Barenboim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, there was. There was. I not only fell in love and started living with Elena, but we had two children. We didn't hide them, as it were, you know, but it was never mentioned in the press until after Jackie's death. And so we'll always be very grateful for that. The record number five is yet another live performance, and this one is of the Mendelssohn Valen concerto played by Nathan Milstein, and there was something very passionate and at the same time very elegant about his plays, not qualities that always go hand in hand. And Milstein for me somehow managed to put in a way that made the violin the most sensuous and the most expressive instrument.”
2006-05-07 · Desert Island Discs · Daniel Barenboim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I was conducted of the Paris Orchestra and I was flying home to London at the beginning nearly every week, nearly every week.”
2006-05-07 · Desert Island Discs · Daniel Barenboim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, yes, she was unable because she had lost all sense of touch and therefore when she would pick up the bow, she didn't know whether it weighed five kilos or five milligrams.”
2006-05-07 · Desert Island Discs · Daniel Barenboim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“She stopped playing for a year and then she started, she played a little bit and then she stopped again and she played a last Bunch of concerts in January, February of 1973.”
2006-05-07 · Desert Island Discs · Daniel Barenboim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh no, it took the cruelty about the illness is not only what it does, but that it took in her case it took four and a half years to diagnose.”
2006-05-07 · Desert Island Discs · Daniel Barenboim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But she was taken to hospital a year and a half after we were married for some very minor surgery. And when she came out of the anesthesia, she had lost sensation in her hands and in her legs. That was the beginning.”
2006-05-07 · Desert Island Discs · Daniel Barenboim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, but I don't know, somehow we managed to live a very simple life. But yes, of course, the public perception, you know, of this young couple both talented, and it was not the case of playing together because one was very famous and sort of managed to convince everybody to engage the other one. It was something that we wanted and everybody wanted.”
2006-05-07 · Desert Island Discs · Daniel Barenboim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh yes, but you didn't have to be very bright to do that. The whole world recognized there was something completely unique about her being at one with the instrument and with the music. You never felt that she thought or she felt maybe the music should go this or that way. It simply was that.”
2006-05-07 · Desert Island Discs · Daniel Barenboim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was at a friend's house. We'd gone there to play chamber music. To eat as well, but preparing to play chamber music and we play chamber music together and so this is how we got to know each other if you want to the music.”
2006-05-07 · Desert Island Discs · Daniel Barenboim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Record number four is Played by Jacqueline Dupre with Sir John Barbrolli Live in Prague. I got it only about a year ago. It was sent to me with a request from Lady Barbro whether I would agree to release it as a record. And my first reaction was, no, why? And then, of course, I listened to the recording and I was so struck by the quality of the performance. And it was a tour that took place in January 67, very shortly after we met. And I remembered that she had told me what a wonderful performance it had been in Prague and how inspired she felt that Sir John had been and that she had been herself. And so of course I am very glad that the record was released.”
2006-05-07 · Desert Island Discs · Daniel Barenboim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I've lost it. I'll bring you a bunch of flowers. Janet Baker always used to say that. After concert, we used to play concerts together and then she was in the huff always trying to get out of the concert. Where's my bunch of flowers? Janet, I hope you are listening to this.”
2006-05-07 · Desert Island Discs · Daniel Barenboim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes. We found out too much our happiness that we were booked on the same train back to London the next day. And you can imagine my surprise. I who had been there for three weeks had one suitcase, but he who came for one afternoon had five, including a silent keyword. And off we took and after about 20 minutes out of Manchester, there was an announcement on the train. And the announcement said, with all passengers, please get off the train as soon as we stop at the next station. There's been a bomb alarm. And there was a terrific rash of everybody panicking getting off the train. Not Clifford who pulled down the windows and cried Porter Porter in this situation he was trying to get a porter to carry his bag. That was really Clifford Curson in a nutshell outside of the music.”
2006-05-07 · Desert Island Discs · Daniel Barenboim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, he was very fussy character. On one occasion we played in Manchester. I had been there for three weeks and he came to play my last concert.”
2006-05-07 · Desert Island Discs · Daniel Barenboim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Record number three is Clifford Curzon playing the last movement of Schubert's D major piano sonata. There was something so lively and Do you say fallacious? Can you say that?”
2006-05-07 · Desert Island Discs · Daniel Barenboim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, well, anyway, and that letter, of course, opened many doors. So you are right, it did change my life. Do you still have?”
2006-05-07 · Desert Island Discs · Daniel Barenboim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“An 11 year old boy play with pertinent. Not only that, but my father explained to him the reasons why he could not accept the invitation and footwear was very understanding and gave me unsolicited or gave my parents a letter where he spoke in very positive terms about me.”
2006-05-07 · Desert Island Discs · Daniel Barenboim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What helped me tremendously was he very kindly invited me to play with the balymphlamonic after hearing me play in nineteen fifty four, and my father thought that was too soon after the war for a Jewish boy to go to Berlin. It was the fact of going to Germany for a Jewish boy whose family had moved to Israel because this was supposed to be the homeland of the Jewish people and to go only nine years after the end of the war to the very center of the Nazi empire really was something that was abhorrent to my parents and to me too as time went on.”
2006-05-07 · Desert Island Discs · Daniel Barenboim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Record number two is the introduction to the last movement of Schumann's fourth symphony, a wonderful recording by the Berlin Philharmonic Ochra with Wilhelm Furtwengler. And I chose this record because Furtwengler to me symbolizes somebody who really articulated Very profoundly the very nature of music making.”
2006-05-07 · Desert Island Discs · Daniel Barenboim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's not me. Yes, but I am fundamentally against that because I believe that if you do that, it will creep into your playing at the moment of a concert and you won't be able to control it. And this is why I'm against this type of practicing and of practicing longer than you are able to concentrate on.”
2006-05-07 · Desert Island Discs · Daniel Barenboim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I wish it were as simple as that. It's not enough to say you don't have to play scales. You have to say which he did. You don't have to play scales because you can find scales in any good piece of music. I remember the great Italian”
2006-05-07 · Desert Island Discs · Daniel Barenboim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was his brother, Adolf Push Brother Adolf Bush, who was a wonderful violinist, and he said to my father, you must make this boy play in public so that he has a normal contact with the public.”
2006-05-07 · Desert Island Discs · Daniel Barenboim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because Buenos Aires was a very, very important opera theater. In the world, and as the second World War developed and parts of Europe were close to the Jews and other parts of Europe were close to the Nazis, Argentina seems to have been open to everybody. You got the best of the German emigrants, some of them not Jewish, like Erish Kleiber and Fritz Busch, who left Germany because they felt they could not make music in that stifling political climate.”
2006-05-07 · Desert Island Discs · Daniel Barenboim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I know the program. The first record I chose is part of the beginning of the Shoppa Second Piano Concerto in F minor, played by Arthur Rubinstein for many reasons. He knew my parents when my mother was pregnant with me, so he literally knew me before I was born and was always a source of great encouragement throughout my life and of all the pianists. He was the first one that wanted to play with me as a conductor when I started conducting. And I chose this particular record because it is one of the few records of Rubenstein playing live.”
2006-05-07 · Desert Island Discs · Daniel Barenboim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I knew all that, and then I played seven uncles, if you please. Then they kept applauding and then, you know, I went on stage and I stopped the applause. And I said to the audience, I'm sorry, I played everything I know. I don't know anymore. And that was it. So you see, I was talking too much already then.”
2006-05-07 · Desert Island Discs · Daniel Barenboim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I've played a whole lot of things. I've played everything I knew. There were some Schumann pieces and I played some Procofieff pieces and played Bach and I played Haydn, I played a mixed, very mixed thing. And you knew all that.”
2006-05-07 · Desert Island Discs · Daniel Barenboim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“From that point of view, I was a child prodigy, and there you see here I am today, the prodigy is gone and the child has remained.”
2006-05-07 · Desert Island Discs · Daniel Barenboim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Uphill in the beginning. I don't know about the talent, I won't comment on that, but my parents were not ambitious in the silly way that...”
2006-05-07 · Desert Island Discs · Daniel Barenboim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I wanted to start studying the violin, but they couldn't find a violin small enough. I needed a quarter violin. And then I realized that the piano was actually a much more comfortable instrument. It had three legs. It stood on its own. It didn't have to hold it. It was an independent beast. And it had the notes. You know, I could put my thumb on one of those black keys and it makes a sound. Well, you can't do that on the violin.”
2006-05-07 · Desert Island Discs · Daniel Barenboim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't know because in a way I don't think of it only as a language because language creates very precise associations whereas music creates associations that very often are not precise. Having said all of that, I think I must have been conscious of music very, very early on because my parents and I lived in a rather small flat in Buenos Aires. Both my parents taught a piano so that whenever the doorbell rang it was somebody coming for a piano lesson. I must have thought as a baby and as a child that the whole world played piano because this is the only kind of people I met so it was always very natural.”
2006-05-07 · Desert Island Discs · Daniel Barenboim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source