Aix-en-Provence (AFP)
It is not the Covid that will stop Daniel Barenboim: the legendary pianist and conductor who played his first concert at the age of seven says to himself, 71 years later, always ready to "start from scratch" .
In the midst of a pandemic, the maestro is in Provence to play at the Easter Festival of classical music, broadcast this year in digital version, health crisis requires.
A program for four hands that he will perform on Tuesday evening alongside another piano legend, Martha Argerich.
Despite the restrictions, the Israeli-Argentinian made the trip to the German capital where for 29 years he has been musical director of the Berlin State Opera and its orchestra, the Staatskapelle.
Since the crisis, he has recorded his fifth complete Beethoven piano sonatas, launched a digital music festival, and conducted live streaming concerts.
- "A musician never arrives" -
The closing of theaters did not encourage him to want to slow down his career, a word he also says "hate".
"A musician + never + arrives, routine is his biggest enemy," he said in an interview with AFP in Aix-en-Provence.
"Every time I play a piece, I learn something new, if I played a Mozart concerto yesterday and I have to play it again today, I have to start from scratch."
"I played my first concert in 1950. Do you believe it? I am 78 years old, I have been playing for over 70 years and people are still willing to come and listen; it is very touching", he confides .
Has the musical world learned any lessons from the health crisis?
“So far, very little,” he comments.
"It's very difficult to talk about the future after the coronavirus, because (even before the Covid), the importance of culture and music had already declined over the past 40 years," says the musician, who regrets " the lack of musical education at school ".
A great activist for access to music to the greatest number, he himself has multiplied initiatives in recent years, such as the launch of his YouTube channel where he presents "5 minutes" on Debussy, Beethoven or Chopin or even the inauguration of a musical kindergarten in Berlin.
He welcomes the progress in terms of diversity and visibility of conductors, but calls for quality not to be lost.
"There must be more black musicians, more female conductors, but the error would be to say + there is a free time slot this week, we should put a woman. + We would need the best, otherwise c 'is a lack of respect for the woman herself ".
Known for his outspokenness and his commitment to peace, notably through the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra founded in 1999 with the Palestinian-American thinker Edward Saïd, and its extension into the Barenboïm-Saïd music academy which forms students in the Middle East, he is "horrified" by the stalemate in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
"There is not a single person on both sides who is keen to look to the future."
- Not a relic -
Having acquired an almost untouchable status of all-powerful maestro, Daniel Barenboim was targeted in 2019 by accusations of authoritarianism on the part of former employees of the Berlin Staatsoper.
He defended himself and the charges were not proven by justice.
He admits, however, that "the way we deal with people has changed around the world."
"It is possible that I was not sufficiently aware of these changes from a social point of view and I told the orchestra publicly, that I would regret it if it was the case," he says. he, while ensuring that he has trouble with "political correctness".
He himself received an education "the hard way" in Paris from one of the most famous music educators, the French Nadia Boulanger, when he was just 12 years old, remembering in particular that she had made a certain Astor cry. Piazzolla telling him that he will always be "a second-class Stravinsky and that he should instead develop the music of his own country. It was she who gave him the idea" to revolutionize the tango.
His contract in Berlin has been extended until 2027. "I tell them every time we talk about the future, I'll stay until I have the strength. Otherwise I'll leave; I don't want to stay. like a relic of the past ".
© 2021 AFP