Towards a Better World Music and Vision June 2

Towards a Better World
Daniel Barenboim and the
West-Eastern Divan Orchestra
are currently on a world tour.
GIUSEPPE PENNISI listens
to their concert in Rome

18 May is an important date for all music lovers: it is the anniversary, this year the centenary, of the death of Gustav Mahler, one of the most important composers and conductors of the twentieth century. Rome had the privilege of celebrating it in a fully packed 3000 seat Sala Santa Cecilia, in the presence of the President of the Republic and of other authorities (but mostly by ordinary ticket-paying mmusic lovers) with a concert that featured the only movement of the tenth symphony Mahler actually achieved. More importantly, this was not a regular subscription concert but a special fundraising event during the worldwide tour of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra conducted by Daniel Barenboim. The tour started in Doha; after a pause in June, he will take the orchestra to the Far East and end in Lucerne and Salzburg in August. The Argentine-Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim and the late Palestinian-American academic Edward Said co-founded the orchestra in 1999, and named the ensemble after an anthology of poems by Goethe. The first orchestral workshop was in Weimar in 1999, after the organisation had received over two hundred applications from Arabic music students.

Daniel Barenboim conducts the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra in Rome. Photo © 2011 Musacchio & Ianniello. Click on the image for higher resolution
The West-Eastern Divan is a youth orchestra based in Seville, consisting of musicians from countries in the Middle East of Egyptian, Iranian, Israeli, Jordanian, Lebanese, Palestinian, and Syrian backgrounds: Its aim is to promote understanding, intercultural dialogue and the experience of collaboration among young talented musicians coming from this troubled area, where listening to each other is too often replaced by violent conflict. And, of course, its aim is to make great music. Barenboim himself has spoken of the ensemble as follows:
'The Divan is not a love story, and it is not a peace story. It has very flatteringly been described as a project for peace. It isn't. It's not going to bring peace, whether you play well or not so well. The Divan was conceived as a project against ignorance. A project against the fact that it is absolutely essential for people to get to know the other, to understand what the other thinks and feels, without necessarily agreeing with it. 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 of the Arab point of view. But I want to -- and unfortunately I am alone in this now that Edward died a few years ago -- create a platform where the two sides can disagree and not resort to knives.'

Daniel Barenboim conducts the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra in Rome. Photo © 2011 Musacchio & Ianniello. Click on the image for higher resolution
One of the young musicians of the orchestra reinforced this point:
'Barenboim is always saying his project is not political. But one of the really great things is that this is a political statement by both sides. It is more important not for people like myself, but for people to see that it is possible to sit down with Arab people and play. The orchestra is a human laboratory that can express to the whole world how to cope with the other.'

Daniel Barenboim conducts the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra in Rome. Photo © 2011 Musacchio & Ianniello. Click on the image for higher resolution
Since 2002, the Junta de Andalucía (Regional Government of Andalusia) and a private foundation have provided a base for the ensemble in Seville, Spain (see www.west-eastern-divan.org). Now, forty per cent of musicians are Palestinians, forty per cents Israelis. The remaining twenty percent is mostly made up by Spaniards, especially from Andalucía. They are all young, normally in their late twenties. By playing music together, they contribute more to the international peace effort in the Middle East than many conferences and shuttle diplomacy efforts.

Daniel Barenboim conducts the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra in Rome. Photo © 2011 Musacchio & Ianniello. Click on the image for higher resolution
The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra has been awarded several prizes, among them the Prize Príncipe de Asturias of the Concorde in 2002 for Said and Barenboim, and the Imperial Premium awarded by the Japan Arts Association (ie the Asian equivalent of a Nobel Prize.
In 2004, the Barenboim-Said Foundation was established and financed by the Junta de Andalucía (Regional Government of Andalusia) with the purpose of developing several other education projects through music and based on the principles of coexistence and dialogue promoted by Said and Barenboim. In addition to managing the orchestra, the Barenboim-Said Foundation assists with other projects such as the Academy of Orchestral Studies, the Musical Education in Palestine project and the Early Childhood Musical Education Project in Seville. A film about the orchestra by Paul Smaczny, Knowledge is the Beginning, won the Emmy Award for the best documentary related to the arts of 2006.

Daniel Barenboim and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra in Rome. Photo © 2011 Musacchio & Ianniello. Click on the image for higher resolution
The 18 May 2011 concert included, in addition to Mahler's Andante-Adagio (the first movement of the unfinished tenth symphony), Beethoven's third symphony in E flat major. In short, two very well known pieces that do not require any explanation to Music & Vision readers.
Barenboim conducted Mahler's movement by slowing and expanding its tempos; it lasted thirty-five minutes -- nearly ten minutes longer than the same piece as performed, only a few weeks earlier, by the Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma under Francesco La Vecchia's baton. In Barenboim's reading, the violas emphasize a theme that comes back several times. Each time it is modified like the flow of waters in a river -- Mahler's central idea for the movement. After a choral part by the brass, a strong dissonance shakes the orchestra and the notes seem to slowly disappear into the sky. Mahler -- we know -- was aware of his imminent death, had been left by his much loved wife, and had returned to being a non-believing Jew with a pantheist vision of nature and of mankind -- the Zen vision which permeates the song cycle he was composing at the same time -- Das Lied von der Erde. Thus, a tormented movement which the orchestra mastered very well. The audience responded with accolades.

Daniel Barenboim (left) in conversation with the President of the Italian Republic, Giorgio Napolitano, and the First Lady, Ms Clio Napolitano. Photo © 2011 Musacchio & Ianniello. Click on the image for higher resolution
It is somewhat easier for an orchestra of young people to feel Beethoven's Symphony No 3 in E Flat major, normally called 'The Heroic Symphony'. It is a classical four movement symphony. In Barenboim's and the orchestra's interpretation, the Allegro con Brio has no Napoleonic undertones. The 'hero' is mankind itself. The theme is a passionate loving vision of the liberation, the awakening and re-invention of mankind. A flight into space with motifs of the French revolution. It is followed by Marcia Funebre / Adagio Assai -- a dark, gloomy march which does not lead to a desolate nothing but to a new beginning. Hence to the Scherzo / Allegro Vivace full of promises exploding in the Finale / Allegro Molto. Under Barenboim's baton, the symphony lasted sixty-two minutes. It was the heroic strive towards a better world -- first of all, a world of peace.
There were no accolades but a fourteen minute standing ovation.
Copyright © 2 June 2011 Giuseppe Pennisi,
Rome, Italy

DANIEL BARENBOIM
GUSTAV MAHLER
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
ROME
ITALY
ORCHESTRAL MUSIC
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