It is always interesting and sometimes even important to have intimate knowledge of a composer’s life, but it is not essential in order to understand the composer’s works. – Daniel Barenboim
Playing and listening to music gives you a sense of fulfilment because you have to put everything in you at its disposal. – Daniel Barenboim
Most of the dramatism in Wagner comes from a very close link between the music and the language of the text. So much of the expressivity of Wagner’s music dramas comes from the singers’ capacity to play with the sound of the language. This kind of thing you can do very well in concert performance. – Daniel Barenboim
I love conducting. What I’m tired of is music administration. I don’t want that. I just want to make music. – Daniel Barenboim
You have to really have the will to hang onto the first note as it is being played, and then really stay with it and take the flight, as it were, you know, for the duration of the piece. – Daniel Barenboim
In order to lift a certain object from the ground, we have to use energy. But then to sustain it at that level, we have to keep on adding energy, or otherwise, the object falls to the ground. It’s exactly the same thing with the sound. – Daniel Barenboim
Wagner is contrapuntal in a philosophical way as well as a musical way. What I mean by that is that every tendency has its opposite, and you see that in the man himself. He’s a metaphysical hermaphrodite – he embraces hard and soft, masculine and feminine. – Daniel Barenboim
We need a certain amount of energy to produce the sound. But then to sustain it, we have to give more energy, or otherwise, it goes and it dies in silence. And therefore, sound is absolutely, inextricably connected to time, the length of time. – Daniel Barenboim
The tempo is the suitcase. If the suitcase is too small, everything is completely wrinkled. If the tempo is too fast, everything becomes so scrambled you can’t understand it. – Daniel Barenboim
You don’t go out and play Beethoven’s ‘Opus 111’ without having rethought about it every time you play. – Daniel Barenboim
Now the first step has to be taken, the step towards democracy. This step is full of risks, and requires trust on all sides. We don’t know where it will lead. But if we just stand still, we will have no chance of escaping the violence. – Daniel Barenboim
When you love somebody and they die young and you are young, too, it is very hard. – Daniel Barenboim
Of course there is really vile anti-Semitism in Wagner’s writings, but I can’t accept the idea that characters like Beckmesser and Alberich are Jewish stereotypes in disguise. Would Beckmesser be a court councillor if he was meant to be a Jewish stereotype? No Jew could occupy such a role. – Daniel Barenboim
I think the most important thing for a listener is to realize that he, too, should not listen to music in a passive way; that if you sit in a concert hall and expect to be moved or taken off your seat by the music, it will not happen. – Daniel Barenboim