Die Musik - Mein Leben

Two weeks ago, or thereabouts, my brother Ge. and I went shopping for music scores at a small music antiques shop in Charlottenburg, and as a 'thank you' we received secondhand books: one by Joachim Kaiser, another evidently a philosophical reflection on Bach, and the third a memoir by Daniel Barenboim, which was published in English originally and in German by Ullstein in 2002. Since I feel too hyperactive to sit down and read a book without hopping to the computer now and then, it seems best to write about the process of reading and then nip over to one or two other websites (Pinterest, for instance, which I have finally officially joined since mid-March) intermittently.

1:35 p.m. One thing I've wondered is when Barenboim's family came to Argentina, since it is (after all) a newish country for European references. The book explains that his grandparents on both sides fled there from the Soviet Union in the 1900s.

1:49 p.m. When did he begin to play? — Barenboim has no Arthur-Rubinsteinesque tales of consummate ability at the age of two* with which to bowl over his reader, or perhaps he modestly withholds them. He grew up in a musical family, and his mother taught him piano first, and soon his father took over.

* I don't have his autobiography at hand, but a certain online encyclopaedia provides the details.

2:20 p.m. In Argentina, he writes, musicians visited the house of Ernesto Rosenthal in Buenos Aires. One of the visitors was Sergiu Celibidache, the conductor from Romania who also for instance taught at the Curtis Institute of Music in the USA. (It's where Hilary Hahn went, and from what Papa tells me it seems like a rather hippieish and freewheeling place instead of a musical barracks for the next generation.) He is easy to find on YouTube, for instance in this video with the Dutch National Radio Symphony Orchestra: Ravel's Bolero, in the early 70s.

2:40 p.m. As a seven-year-old, Barenboim gave his first concert in Argentina, where he had already been going to school. He writes that even when he became a teenager school was a priority insofar as he didn't go on long tours, so that he had a 'quite normal school education.' I think 'quite normal' is being stuck in there for the grim duration and not having much during the holidays and after school to take one's mind off of it, but anyway. (c:

2:47 p.m. In the early 1950s his family moved to Israel because his mother, in particular, as well as his grandparents on her side, were highly excited by the formation of the new homeland. His father's piano lessons continued, and Barenboim writes that this was quite convenient insofar as he didn't have to hop back and forth between different teaching and musical philosophies. Also, he was taught to think of music and technique as integrated concepts, so that there wasn't undue emphasis on scales and other technical exercises and undertakings in isolation. An important thing was to be taught what was needed by the scores, let's say of a Mozart piano concerto.

This really rang a chord, but rather because I always mess up scales and do better when they are part of a piece of music. Unlike with Barenboim, I don't know if it can objectively be said to be the only possible philosophy or the best didactic method for me. But at least it keeps me happy and keeps me in good humour with the music. Also, even under these conditions, it is nice to feel that a piece I work on for a while on can send me forth into the world again with a new piece of the technique puzzle, even if I haven't tracked down the relevant finger exercises or scales for repetitive formal drills.

To translate back into the English, Barenboim writes,

"I often meet musicians who begin by trying to solve specific problems in a technical, mechanical way, so that they can wedge in the 'musicality' afterwards — like whipping cream on a cake. But these things — technique and interpretation — should be connected from the outset [...]".

For me, I think it is perhaps rather a failing that (as far as I know) I don't want to resolve technical problems or look at music analytically for its composition, for fear of losing the charm and emotional roundedness of the music. If I were really a musician and weren't a shallow person, shouldn't it make no difference? But perhaps it is the case as with academic work, where I think the worst possible thing is to engage with the subject shallowly and then become convinced that one knows everything because it is too easy — whereas diving into learning and researching, and pushing past mental barriers, produces a degree of thought and emotional development which doesn't make one flippant or cold.

3:22 p.m. Well, I'm only on p. 17, which is the disadvantage of a reading liveblog when I'm the one in charge of writing it; but I think I'll take a break and look at Easter crafts, etc., on a certain pinning website now.