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Dear friends
on f_minor,
I think
sometimes we can get so caught up in some of the small issues of Glenn that we
can lose sight of what he did for a living and why such a career is so
critically important to the nurturing and survival of the human spirit.
Today -- a
day on which a great, unhappy shadow has fallen on nearly all the media, print
and electronic -- The New York Times was thoughtful enough to report on a
remarkable event.
To my great
surprise, the world today is not entirely sabres rattling, dread, fear, hatred,
threat, revenge. The world today is not entirely gunfire, land mines and the
threat of another war.
Yesterday one
human being -- a piano player by trade, like Glenn -- chose, at some risk to
himself, to paint a particularly dreadful and violent place in our world a
bright and beautiful color.
So, in the
midst of the torrent of today's mixture of confusion and sadness and worry, I
wanted very much to pass this along. I hope it pleases all of you and helps to
returns our thoughts to beauty and peace and individual bravery, and the best
things human beings and their communities are capable
of.
Bob
===========================
The New York
Times
Wednesday 11 September 2002 RAMALLAH JOURNAL
'Moonlight' and Mendelssohn in the West Bank
By SERGE SCHMEMANN RAMALLAH,
West Bank, Sept. 10 -- The old Steinway grand had seen better days, but when
Daniel Barenboim drew the first nostalgic notes of Beethoven's
"Moonlight" Sonata from it today, 200 neatly uniformed Palestinian
students froze in delight.
Music, and
especially music of this caliber from a live Israeli master, is not something
that has often graced young lives more wrapped up in the daily misery of
curfews, roadblocks, dangers and hatreds.
Mr.
Barenboim, the famed conductor and pianist, seemed forgiving of the hoarse old
instrument and the many television cameras with him on the stage. The music was
a message, which he spelled out after an ecstatic ovation from the
pupils.
"Each
one of us has a responsibility to do what is right, and not to wait for others
to do it," he said. "My way is music. What I can do is play music,
play music for you, and maybe this way, in a very small way for these few
moments, we are able to build down the hatred that is so much in the
region."
His words
sounded incontrovertible. But Mr. Barenboim's music has stirred some sharp
debate in Israel, most memorably when he led a German orchestra in a piece by
Wagner, Hitler's favorite composer, at an Israeli arts festival in July 2001.
Many in the audience walked out, and Mr. Barenboim was accused of everything
from insensitivity to "cultural rape."
Mr.
Barenboim, who was born in Argentina, raised in Israel, and now divides most of
his time between Berlin and Chicago, has also been vocal in his criticism of
Israel's military crackdown on the Palestinians, often posting his views on his
Web site, daniel-barenboim.com. In March, while Israeli troops were cracking
down on Palestinian towns, Mr. Barenboim announced that he would give a concert
in Ramallah, the Palestinian headquarters in the West Bank. The Israeli Army
barred him from going, saying it could not guarantee his security, and the
concert was canceled.
Three weeks
ago, on his last visit to Israel, Mr. Barenboim, 59, gave a concert at Bir Zeit
University, a Palestinian university near Ramallah.
This time,
there was little advance notice, and Mr. Barenboim simply ignored whatever
restrictions were in force. He declined to discuss how he got in, but a German
diplomatic car was waiting for him outside.
After a few
weeks of relative quiet, the visit seemed not to generate the same resistance
that arose in March. There was no immediate comment from Israel, and the event
was given scant notice on Israeli television news.
But for the
students who came to the Friends School, a respected private school, it was a
day to remember. Mr. Barenboim performed only the one sonata, and then invited
the Palestinians to play for him.
Three girls
rose to the challenge. Sileen Khoury, 15, gamely worked her way through a Chopin
waltz, followed by 15-year-old Nadia Arouri with Mendelssohn's barcarole, and
Zeina Amr, 14, who was so nervous she forgot the name of her piece. Mr.
Barenboim told them all they were great, and urged them to keep
studying.
"It was
very nice of him, because he took all the trouble to come here through
checkpoints and everything," said Ms. Amr.
Ms. Khoury,
who said she wanted to continue with music, added that she was "a bit
nervous, but with Mr. Barenboim beside me I felt safe."
"Actually it was an honor for us, she said.
"The Israelis try to stop us from learning, working, but they can never
stop us from playing music."
She said she
had been studying piano for six years, but her seventh year at the conservatory
was delayed because curfews had prevented her from taking her
exams.
After the
students went back to class, Mr. Barenboim, dressed in a casual white jacket
over a black polo shirt, sat down with reporters to pursue his message,
alternating comfortably between English, Hebrew, French and
Italian.
As director
of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and artistic director of the Staatsoper
Berlin, he is something of a citizen of the world, and it has been largely his
visits to Israel that have brought him criticism. Mr. Barenboim came this time
for the International Chamber Music Festival in Jerusalem, and the police were
in evidence there on Sunday after he received death
threats.
Mr. Barenboim
first performed in the West Bank in 1999, when he appeared with Edward Said, the
Columbia University professor and outspoken Palestinian, with whom the musician
became friends in the early 1990's. For the past three years, Mr. Barenboim has
run summer workshops in Germany and the United States for young musicians from
Israel and Arab countries.
To people who
ask why he made the special effort to come to Ramallah, he said his answer was
simple.
"I'm not
a politician," he said. "I don't have a plan to end the conflict. But
I think the lesson we have to learn from the 20th century is that every human
being -- small, young as you or older like I -- has to think of his
responsibility as a human being and not always depend on the politicians and the
governments."
Anyway, he
said, he was happy to be able to speak Hebrew in Ramallah without feeling
uncomfortable, and to demonstrate that there are different kinds of Israelis.
"The worst that could happen today is that they didn't like the way I
played," he said.
As for those
who might find fault with the visit, he said, "Anyone who criticizes my
being here today, I only have pity for him."
In Ramallah,
at least, there was no one to pity, and nobody complained about the music.
"It's extremely important to have him here," said Colin South, the
director of the Friends School. "Anybody of this caliber who can come to
the West Bank and play for us right now is just incredibly encouraging. We're
very grateful for him being here."
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