{"id":20320,"date":"2022-10-05T14:10:13","date_gmt":"2022-10-05T12:10:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/?p=173135"},"modified":"2022-10-05T14:25:09","modified_gmt":"2022-10-05T12:25:09","slug":"daniel-barenboim-steps-back-from-performing","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/rss_feed\/daniel-barenboim-steps-back-from-performing\/","title":{"rendered":"Daniel Barenboim steps back from performing"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Steve Wright\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Wednesday, 05 October 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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Pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim<\/strong><\/a> has announced that he is taking a step back from performing, after being diagnosed with a \u2018serious neurological condition\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u2018It is with a combination of pride and sadness that I announce today that I am taking a step back from some of my performing activities, especially conducting engagements, for the coming months,\u2019 Barenboim told his followers on Twitter.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Barenboim, 79, had previously cancelled a series of concerts earlier in 2022, citing health reasons. Now, he has revealed that he will be dropping further engagements over the next few months.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u2018My health has deteriorated over the last months,\u2019 Barenboim reveals. \u2018I must now focus on my physical well-being,\u2019 he continues, before concluding that \u2018I have lived all my life in and through music, and I will continue to do so as long as my health allows me to.\u2019<\/p>\n

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Composer and pianist Daniel Barenboim, who has announced that he will be stepping back from live performance over the coming months<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Daniel Barenboim was born in Argentina in 1942, to Jewish parents. Both his mother and father were piano teachers, and Barenboim has recalled how \u2018in my childish brain, everyone played the piano!\u2019. The young Barenboim was already making his name as a talented pianist: he gave his first formal concert in Buenos Aires in 1950, aged just seven.<\/p>\n

Two years later, the family moved to Israel: then, in 1954, the young Barenboim went to Salzburg to learn conducting from Igor Markevitch. During that summer he also met and played for the great conductor Wilhelm Furtw\u00e4ngler<\/strong><\/a>, who would remain a key musical inspiration throughout Barenboim\u2019s life.<\/p>\n

Indeed, Furtw\u00e4ngler labelled the young pianist a \u2018phenomenon\u2019 and invited him to play Beethoven\u2019s Piano Concerto No.1 with the Berlin Philharmonic. Barenboim\u2019s father declined the offer, believing that the trauma of war was still too recent for a Jewish boy to perform in Germany. Beethoven, however, would be another key figure in Barenboim\u2019s musical life, both as pianist and conductor.<\/p>\n