The sunset of Barenboim

Music is an art that reflects on the inherent contradiction of time; often, when we enjoy our favorite symphony, one can get the feeling that seconds stretch out and the sound will never end, like an eternal waiting measure. On the other hand, the grace of music (of sound itself and rhythm, in fact) is that sooner or later it will have to close its path to give way to silence. Something similar happens with the most acclaimed performers; thanks to modern recording techniques, we can always have access to the music performed by our idols, which gives them a false aura of eternity. But musicians, for God's sake, are also made of flesh and bones and ---no matter how much Mr. Spotify's eternal machine can revive them at the price of a keystroke on the phone--- a day will come when they will leave the nook of the living and we will only be able to resurrect them in the infinite cloud of digital canning.

All this comes to mind because, this very week, pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim has announced that he suffers from Parkinson's disease. The news was not a surprise, as Barenboim had not set foot on stages around the world for about three years and had retired from his almost eternal throne at the Berlin State Opera and the Staatskapelle of the same city. The maestro has shared his desire to continue conducting his beloved West-Eastern Divan Orchestra as long as his health allows, but the unfortunate onset of Parkinson's makes us fear that he is already entering the twilight of his immense musical career (more than seventy years without any pause!) and that there will be no more opportunities to see him seated at the piano. Barenboim is one of those musicians who has accompanied me all my life and whom I imagined eternal; that an 82-year-old man suffers from an illness is not strange at all, but that it attacks this superman drives me crazy.

With Barenboim's sunset, a race of musicians that will be difficult to repeat comes to an end, not because ---away with nostalgia!--- present artists are less prepared than their grandparents (in fact, it's quite the opposite), but precisely because the world of classical music suffers from the same hyper-speed, volatile spirit, and unhealthy competitiveness as most cultural phenomena in our world, which makes it very difficult for musicians to have enough time to solidify a career with the necessary patience. Barenboim had the luck and skill to train during years that retained the methodical approach of great masters like Furtwängler and Stokowski and to be able to transmit his heritage through the new mass culture, all in a world where an interpreter could conduct Tristan on a Monday in Tokyo and the next day bang out the Goldberg variations at Carnegie Hall.

Through his prodigious memory and supernatural muscular capacity, Barenboim adapted quite well to the new condition of globetrotting pianist-conductors. It's somewhat amusing, because Barenboim gave us few authentically memorable interpretations (at home, from this generation of masters and pianists, we prefer the extreme finezza of Maris Jansons and the grace of Marta Argerich or Maurizio Pollini), because the key element of his imprint was the strength he exhibited when approaching a score and, in parallel, the immense power he showed in being able to tackle almost the entire Western repertoire with equal guarantees. It is in this sense, often cerebral but also of pure muscularity, that the news of Barenboim beginning to fade, a victim of Parkinson's, resonates in our spirit like a strong kick to the groin of pride.

Everything must end sooner or later, it is fair and true, but Barenboim's sunset gives me a feeling similar to having had a perfect machine that never failed me stolen from my house. We hope that this vital coda is not too long nor implies excessive suffering for our hero. From now on, he is already part of this cloud where we will deposit all our memory, which has gone from residing in the world's libraries to being the playground of the great technobros who spin the contingencies of the planet. Thank you for so much music, ché, Maestro!