1:41 a.m. I am hopping ahead to p. 33, which delves into Israel in the 1960s and 50s. It was, as a Jewish state, rather a confluence of different waters — American, South American, continental European and Middle Eastern Jews (which two groups, at the risk of looking like an ignoramus, I think are generally synonymous with 'Ashkenazi' and 'Sephardic'); educated as seemed typical for the emigrants to the New World or uneducated — at least fairly unworldly; and diverse in many other traits of Weltanschauung and character and tradition, I suppose, too.
In Barenboim's age group, earnest political convictions carried over into their daily life and habits, mirroring the convictions of the fully-fledged grown-ups; "It was the first time that I experienced a society that was built on idealism." There was apparently a great deal of soul-searching — what was a man's (or woman's) role in the state; what should be striven for as a citizen and as a citizenry, as a labourer on the construction site of one's own new home and of the state at large?
But when he first came to Israel he was still nine or ten, and had to grow into his schooling, too, with the impediment that he knew no Hebrew. The principal wave of immigration from Europe had occurred some four years earlier, and he was isolated as a Spanish-speaker. But his home city of Tel Aviv was a fairly safe place to grow up and play; it was smaller, nobody locked doors, and everyone was so idealistic that the reality of crime and punishment was at first considered neglibible. With paradisaical phraseology, Barenboim writes, "Every day we faced the reality that the land had been a desert, and we attempted to irrigate it, to build parks and to erect houses. Such challenges in creativity were at that time the impelling force of the Israeli people."
Slowly, encouraged by the principal of his school, he began to develop a separate sense of Jewish identity to the one familiar from life in Argentina, where he had been, arguably, a perpetual Other.
A parallel of Israeli citizenship to music grew from the recognition that, in both, the past is vital to the present, purposely tended as a wellspring, touchstone, or whichever metaphor one prefers, of identity.
The older he got, the more Barenboim was interested in Max Brod and Martin Buber. [And since I know nothing about either, and Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy does not cover them, I have nothing of worth to write at this juncture . . .] The Bible was a text in schools — not so much in the religious function, apparently, as in the ethical and cultural one — which was also assimilated, it seems, into his thought.
Three years after he immigrated to Israel, he studied in Paris under Nadia Boulanger. She taught, I gather, a truly vast contingent of musicians, even looming as a prospect for the musical student in the film Love Story; and she apparently carried out her profession with tough effect. Even before then he had performed with the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra, 'under the baton' of Milton Katims, and became familiar with the settled, central Europeanish style which was part of the Orchestra from its inception in 1936 until the generations replaced each other in the 1960s. Considering the modest size of the city is quartered in, the breadth and depth of its continued support by the public is remarkable, says Barenboim (in a less fluffy phrasing than mine).
At the risk of writing humbug, I think it speedily becomes clear where the patriotism and ideals of the early years link into the dissenting voices in Israel today; uncompromising, with stubborn ideas of what is right, and not worried about being popular or 'nice' (in the tamer, rather uncourageous sense), with no slavish trust in the general rectitude and achievement of politicians.
3:06 a.m. In 1954 Barenboim went to Salzburg to study conducting; there, Igor Markevitch wanted him to give up the piano entirely. Barenboim's father — who was still his son's teacher — disagreed and said it was too early to choose. In the next sentence the words "eleven years old" appear, and lend support to that argument.
As a child prodigy in his conducting, Barenboim did not feel that he was cordially received, exactly, amongst all his adult classmates except one. But I think that as the classmate to a young musician you can always claim superiority by saying that he is brilliant, but still a mere Shrimp in terms of emotional maturity, so there was no need for animus if it was motivated by jealousy . . . Markevitch — while Barenboim disagrees with his approach in some more salient aspects — insisted amongst other things on a minimum of gesturing, which I, for one, endorse. 'Good wine needs no bush.'
There, in Salzburg, he had a moment typical of the one which Pablo Casals so often describes in his autobiography: some famous personage in the musical world (whose distinguished worth has kept him in fame today) listens to little Pablito play, and declares "You are a musician!" in awe. 'I met Wilhelm Furtwängler,' Barenboim writes;
Someone presented me to him, I played for him, and he found my playing impressive. He wrote a letter which admittedly opened many doors for me. It said, "The eleven-year-old Barenboim is a phenomenon . . ." This letter would be my recommendation for the next twenty years.And he invited Barenboim to play with the Berlin Philharmonic, which I should think is even more corking. (He didn't end up going.)
There follows a discursion on conducting, exemplified by Furtwängler, which is a case of pearls before swine for me because I have a bit of a tin ear when it comes to the merits or demerits of an orchestra. But as I understand it he deplores rather overly obvious ploys to foster dramatic tension, like excessive rallentando (slowing down, if I remember correctly) if it is not indicated in the score.
TO BE honest, I might be guilty of this myself, purely because — as I've vaguely noticed, which perhaps makes me a dimwit for not hashing out the matter once and for all already — there is some connection between the tempo and dynamics, in that one feels that one should speed up the louder the music gets and slow down the quieter it gets. I think articulation (if that is the right term) — staccato, legato or of course detached — have similar associations which complicate it further. It is very hard to decouple one from the other. On the other hand I do shun conscious rallentandos, because for the most part they seem to do nothing which one can't convey in the music in other ways.
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