Both narrative and
concert performance, this two DVD set
seeks to encapsulate Barenboim’s humanity
and many sidedness. In that, the documentary
‘Multiple Identities’ explicitly delineates
the trio of self confessed identities
– Argentinean, Jewish, Musician. It’s
doubly perverse in the light of Barenboim’s
commitment to various causes that a
timeserving Israeli politician is interviewed
sneeringly questioning whether Barenboim
is not, after all, one third Argentinean,
one third Jew and one third German.
The question strikes at the heart of
Barenboim’s even handed relationship
with Wagner and with his orchestra in
Berlin. In elevating the equivalence
of Barenboim as a German - he plays
Wagner, he lived in Berlin, therefore
he is a German - we reach some of the
more tangible politicised dimensions
that run through the documentary.
Fortunately the documentary
is not really contentious in this way;
it is actually part travelogue. We follow
him to Buenos Aires and to the streets
where he grew up, to the Staatskapelle,
to rehearsals with Cecilia Bartoli and
Waltrud Meier (old friends) and to Chicago
for Mahler 7. We hear about his apparently
- to others - chaotic rehearsal conditions
- which invariably work - and from his
admirers and colleagues. There’s a fine
interview with the languid but clear
sighted Dale Clevenger of the Chicago,
as well as the orchestra’s perspicacious
manager, Henry Fogel. We see Barenboim,
cigar chomping, talking with Boulez
whose aphorism that we must burn memory
like the Phoenix is one of the most
thought-provoking of all. We see his
inner sanctum – convivial cooking sessions,
chats with his family - though frustratingly,
perhaps for reasons of privacy, not
everyone is captioned. There’s more
cigar smoking as he mutely plays backgammon
with Zubin Mehta but here and elsewhere
one can find oneself impatient. Too
many multiple identities maybe and not
enough musical focus. Too many arty
shots of Chicagoan skyscrapers, too
much pavement travelogue, maybe. It’s
certainly more geographical than chronological
– those looking for a shilling life
won’t find it here. Still we do get
the infamous Israel Tristan – amateur
shots from the audience of the fractious
rabbinic arguments when he and the German
orchestra dared to offer it as an encore.
The late Edward Said’s contribution
– which one can read in greater detail
in the book of the Barenboim-Said conversations
Parallels and Paradoxes; Explorations
in Music and Society – is seen in
the context of the pan-national (and
racial) orchestra Barenboim regularly
conducts. Throughout the social, political
and humanistic are in indivisible harmony
and commitment. Barenboim’s fruitful
selves serve, whether one agrees or
sympathises or not, as soil- digging
practicalities enriching the mind and
body. Even pianists can use trowels.
And it’s as a pianist
that we see him in the concert from
the Teatro Colón; a Jubilee Concert
of his fifty years on stage, as he says,
and not a birthday one. A look at the
programme will disclose the identities;
the young wunderkind who once performed
with Furtwängler, the Argentinean
who still loves the Tango, the poetic
spirit behind the chomp and the bustle
and the backgammon. Though one tends
to find him denigrated as a pianist
and thought of more and more as a conductor
he remains in excellent condition. Slips
are minor and if the titanic Appassionata
doesn’t quite convince, his Mozart
is warm and alive, the South Americans
are full of colour and verve, the Schumann
affectionate. The shots are conventional;
multiple camera angles over both sides
of the keyboard, left and right, and
also a front-on shot.
Old enough to have
played with the Great Conductors but
young enough to be our contemporary
Barenboim deserves this salute, imperfect
though it sometimes is.
Jonathan Woolf
Daniel Barenboim (piano) 
EUROARTS
DVD 2050429 [140’ concert + 90’documentary]
