Daniel Barenboim – The First Step of Glory

Daniel Barenboim, born in Buenos Aires in 1942, is a pianist, conductor, opera director and humanitarian. His parents were music teachers, moving first to Israel, then to Europe. Daniel Barenboim gave his first concert when he was seven, and was giving piano recitals in Vienna and Salzburg at the age of ten. He sought advice as a pianist from Edwin Fischer, and as a conductor from Igor Markevitch. His London concert debut of 1955 was conducted by Josef Krips. Six years later he was standing at the conductor’s rostrum himself. As successor to Georg Solti in 1975, he assumed the position – which he held until 1989 – of Director of the Orchestre de Paris and in 1981, he celebrated the first of his many Bayreuth triumphs with his premiere of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. He took the Berlin Philharmonic on their first tour of Israel in 1990 and since 1992 he has been General Music Director of Berlin’s Staatsoper unter den Linden and its orchestra, the Staatskapelle. – text adapted from the booklet notes written by Jan Gärtner.