Of course there is a huge cheer at the end. Because every performance by Daniel Barenboim is now a celebration. Many had feared that the serious illness could mean the end of his career – but he fought his way back onto the podium and can conduct concerts again.
And that needs to be celebrated. Especially on this Easter Saturday, when the Maestro is presenting a new orchestra in the Pierre Boulez Saal: It is made up of students from the Barenboim Said Academy, founded as a university for highly talented people from the countries of the Middle East and North Africa. It perpetuates the work that Barenboim has been doing with the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra since 1999, making it one of the most important pillars of his life’s work.
Barenboim conducts with minimal gestures
And yet there is also a moment of shock on this happy day: Barenboim has aged significantly since his last performance in Berlin, his facial features are now clearly reminiscent of those of the composer Anton Bruckner in his last years.
At the beginning he talks extremely slowly about the origins of the academy orchestra, interspersed with long pauses in speaking, so that the speech stretches to 20 minutes. Because Daniel Barenboim is also constantly pointing the microphone in the wrong direction, it is difficult to understand him, even though it is dead quiet in the sold-out hall.
Interim report from the academic work
In the end, however, he mounts his conductor’s chair: he chose Mozart’s “Sinfonia concertante” and Franz Schubert’s Third for the young people’s debut. A sounding snapshot can be experienced, an interim result of the academic work, a report from the toils of the level.
It takes a lot of joint work, a lot of collective sweat to form an orchestra out of people who play music, an ensemble that individuals voluntarily join together to form. Even if an old master like Daniel Barenboim wields the baton.
His gestures, meanwhile reduced to a minimum, are an additional challenge for the young men and women – 38 with Mozart, 47 then with Schubert. With this spartan use of signs, a lot has to be guessed at, felt intuitively when it comes to tonal balance or interpretive nuances. Which challenges even experienced professionals.
So many things in the “Sinfonia concertante” sound shy, carefully rehearsed but not felt, without wit and verve, sometimes even a little old-fashioned. The two soloists Yamen Saadi on the violin and Michael Barenboim on the viola are not very invigorating: they make music together in a friendly manner, without any vanity, like witty scholars politely exchanging well-considered arguments.
Unfortunately, even with Schubert’s 3rd symphony, the whole is no more than the sum of its parts. The first movement remains woodcut-like, the enchanting Allegretto could sound much more elegant. At least there are more suspense here, the music gets direction and goal.
The minuet comes along as if danced in clogs, before the orchestral ideal state flashes briefly in the waltz-blessed trio – that all participants are swinging on the same breath. But then the symphony rushes rustically towards its end. And of course there is a huge cheer. Because every performance by Daniel Barenboim is now a celebration.
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