Classical Music

Where do you begin with Daniel Barenboim? A child prodigy, world-famous concert pianist, glamour icon of the ’60s, renowned conductor, educator, peace-maker, holder of a clutch of honours and now probably the only person since Jesus to hold both Israeli and Palestinian citizenship.

So, it’s with some relief that my suggestion that he must be as exhausted talking about Beethoven and the Middle East as I am reading about it, is met with a roar of laughter. The maestro is in good form. He is in his Berlin office and preparing for the eight concerts of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata Cycle, which begin at the Festival Hall on Monday.

Having expounded endlessly on the aforementioned subjects, the proposition of beginning by talking about London appeals to him. He lived here through the swinging ’60s and into the 1970s. And with his first wife, the cellist Jacqueline du Pré, he was half of classical music’s golden couple.

Barenboim remembers the period fondly. ‘I have only very happy memories of London at that time. I loved being there… Back then the classical scene was quite extraordinary, with people like Klemperer and Barbirolli. And there were the Beatles who came out; it was all-round extraordinarily exciting. It’s funny, because in 1970 I met the Beatles quite by a chance at a party. It was the Beethoven bicentenary and I was then also playing the Beethoven Sonatas. And that’s all they wanted to hear about – I wanted to talk about them, and all they wanted to talk about was Beethoven.’

Despite not having lived here for 30 years, he is immediate in his recollection of his various residences. ‘First we lived in Upper Montague Street and then we had a house in Hampstead. Then, when Jackie’s condition got worse, because we had stairs we had to move to a place in South Kensington.’ Du Pré, who died in 1987, suffered from multiple sclerosis and the couple moved to the house that prima ballerina Margot Fonteyn had equipped with a lift for her husband, who had been paralysed.

Of these his favourite was in NW3. ‘I liked very much when we lived in Hampstead. We would go for walks on the Heath. I liked it better than living in the centre of town.’ But, it is to the centre that he goes when revealing what an international superstar does to relax. ‘I like to go to the theatre,’ he says, adding, ‘I am very happy because I’ve got tickets to go and see “Othello”.'

And afterwards? ‘There are wonderful restaurants in London. I love Indian food and I like Arab food, and I go very often to the Arab restaurant Noura. There is one on Curzon Street, but the one I go to is near Eaton Place.’ Of course, he won’t be able to go there now that we all know. The maestro belly-laughs at this idea. He is clearly not in touch with his level of celebrity.

But there is one place that he is particularly keen to revisit. That is the newly renovated Festival Hall, where he will perform the Beethoven Sonatas. ‘I have played there hundreds of times in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s,’ he declares excitedly. ‘I hear that the acoustics are so good now, and I am so much looking forward to that.’

As to whether he has a special affiliation with Beethoven, his response is the same as to if he has a favourite sonata. ‘No, I don’t. I feel my favourite is the one that I am playing at this moment.’ And, on the question of how much of the experience will be down to Beethoven and how much to himself, he is adamant. ‘Oh, the work is him. The work is completely him. What I can do is to bring into sound what I read in the pages.’

And so, for such a musical colossus, Barenboim seems remarkably devoid of ego. For it is his fame that has kept the reconciliation in the Middle East story very much in the news. That is to say, his involvement with the West-Eastern Divan orchestra, a project to bring young Arab and Israeli musicans together, which he set up with the historian Edward Saïd in 1999.

Is he not worried that, like Bob Geldof, he will be remembered as a do-gooder and not a great musician? (okay, come to think of it, nothing like the former Boomtown Rat, then.) ‘Well, you know the West-Eastern Divan is not a peace-making project,’ he explains earnestly. ‘I think it is more an orchestra against ignorance.’

Anyway, Barenboim doesn’t care how he will be remembered. After all, it is something that is beyond his control. He only lives for now. ‘No, I only care, when I play,’ he muses, ‘that people come and enjoy that and get something out of it.’

That, of course, is guaranteed.

Daniel Barenboim plays the Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas at the Royal Festival Hall, Jan 28-Feb 17.