Carnegie Hall

A pianist, chamber musician, philosopher, music director, and conductor with a storied performance history at Carnegie Hall, Daniel Barenboim has spent decades sharing his classical music gifts with the world in a career that spans nearly 70 years.

This month on Carnegie Hall+, we spotlight the multitalented artist, whose work is now available for premium, on-demand viewing across a collection of 19 titles. From solo recitals that demonstrate his affinity for Schubert and Beethoven to intimate chamber concerts and monumental displays of his skills on the conductor’s podium (where he often appears alongside giants such as Martha Argerich), Barenboim has repeatedly proven himself a versatile master of many forms. And at the helm of his own collaborative West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, he has shown that political activism also has a place in classical music.

A prodigy born to two professional pianists in 1942, Barenboim spent the first 10 years of his life in Buenos Aires. His father was his first teacher, and by the time the family moved to Israel in 1952, he was already beginning to establish himself as a global phenomenon. Performances in Vienna and Rome in the early 1950s were followed with programs in Paris, London, and New York—the last under the baton of Leopold Stokowski at Carnegie Hall, performing Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 1—all before the young virtuoso had turned 15. 

Never content to stay put at the keyboard, Barenboim traveled to Salzburg for conducting lessons under composer and conductor Igor Markevitch in 1954. That summer, he played for legendary maestro Wilhelm Furtwängler, who became a mentor. Barenboim made his conducting debut with the English Chamber Orchestra in 1966, then traveled the world to lead many preeminent symphony orchestras: For nearly 15 years starting in 1975, he was music director of the Orchestre de Paris, where he put his stamp on many 20th-century masterworks. In 1991, he succeeded Sir Georg Solti as music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra—a role he held until 2006.

As his musical circle widened in his teens—harmony and composition tutelage under Nadia Boulanger; influential friendships with Itzhak Perlman, and Pinchas Zukerman—he soon fell into one of classical music’s best-documented romantic partnerships, marrying British cellist Jacqueline du Pré in 1967. (Their union lasted until du Pré’s untimely death from multiple sclerosis in 1987.) “I thought then and still do that he is one of the great players of our time,” pianist Emanuel Ax explained to The New York Times.

Having earned the respect of his contemporaries, Barenboim was appointed artistic and general music director of the Berlin State Opera in 1992, and he brought the opera company’s Staatskapelle Berlin to Carnegie Hall in 2000 for a series of high-profile concerts (part of his first Perspectives series from 1999 to 2001) of Beethoven’s complete symphonies and piano concertos. Four years later, Barenboim repeated the feat, conducting a full cycle of R. Schumann’s symphonies in Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage. He also celebrated the 60th anniversary of his Carnegie Hall debut in 2017 by conducting the Staatskapelle Berlin in a complete Bruckner symphony cycle over nine nights—the first such cycle performed in the United States in a single season.

Barenboim’s leadership of the Berlin State Opera—as well as his remarkable tenure leading Wagner’s operas at the Bayreuth Festival beginning in 1981—eventually sealed his reputation as a singer’s conductor. Carnegie Hall+ showcases a variety of his appearances alongside opera stars, including an unforgettable 1995 Bayreuth production of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, a dazzling 2007 performance of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin with baritone Peter Mattei at the Salzburg Festival, and an all-Mozart program with ebullient mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli and the Vienna Philharmonic in 2021.

Although many might consider Barenboim’s musical schedule overwhelming, the conductor can imagine no other way of being in the world. “I don’t feel I have an abnormal schedule,” he once told The New York Times. “What would I have done without the recital yesterday? I would have gotten up at 10 instead of 9:30. I would have played the piano here at home instead of there. I have a card in my favor, which is the ability to concentrate. The act of mental preparation didn’t ever exist for me. As a child I used to play soccer, shower, then play a concert.”

And while many musicians might be content with the honors he’s accrued, Barenboim has soldiered on, building a legacy as a champion of social justice. Partnering with Palestinian-American scholar Edward Said in 1999, he founded the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, an ensemble based in Seville, Spain, comprising musicians from across the Middle East and intended to promote understanding between Israelis and Palestinians. As Barenboim told The Guardian in 2008, “I’m not trying to convert the Arab members of the Divan to the Israeli point of view, and [I’m] not trying to convince the Israelis to the Arab point of view. But I want to ... create a platform where the two sides can disagree and not resort to knives.” Subscribers can experience this unique musical diplomacy in four entries on Carnegie Hall+, including the documentary Barenboim on Beethoven, in which the peace-seeking conductor takes the West–Eastern Divan Orchestra on a tour of South Korea and China to promote Beethoven’s nine symphonies.

Part humanitarian, part prodigy, part musical omnivore, Barenboim brings polish and excitement to every performance. On Carnegie Hall+, subscribers can experience his gifts across a variety of different musical genres and configurations: impeccable artistry at the piano and on the podium.