Daniel Barenboim

Speaker 30:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand and six, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:29

My Costaway this week is a musician. He is one of the finest exponents of classical music alive in the world today, a brilliant pianist and conductor, and a music director of the first rank.

Presenter0:40

For the past five weeks he's been delivering his vision of music in the BBC's Wreath Lectures here on Radio Four. Today we've come to his house in Jerusalem, overlooking the walls of the Old City, to hear what pieces of music matter most to him and how they relate to a life vivid with achievement and incident. I've had my share of suffering in life, he said, and very often in those bad moments music comes into my brain and the unhappiness will give way to something more pleasant and easier to live with. He is of course Daniel Barrenbohm. Daniel, music is and always has been your life, I know that, ever since you were born in Argentina. Would you go as far as to say it was the first language you ever knew?

Daniel Barenboim1:26

I don't know, because in a way I don't think of it only as a language, because language creates very precise associations, whereas music uh creates associations that very often are not precise. And having said all of that, I think I must have been conscious of music uh very, very early on, because my parents and I lived in a rather small flat in Buenos Aires. Both my parents taught piano, so that whenever the doorbell rang, it was somebody coming for a piano lesson. I must have thought as a baby and as a child that the whole world played piano,'cause this is the only kind of people I met. So it was always very natural.

Presenter2:11

You started playing the violin first and so

Daniel Barenboim2:14

I I wanted to start studying the violin, but they couldn't find a violin small enough. I needed a quarter violin. And then I realized that the piano was actually a much more comfortable instrument. It had three legs, it stood on its own, it didn't have to hold it, it was an independent beast and it had the notes. You know, I could put my thumb on the one of those black keys and it makes a sound. Well, you can't do that on the violin.

Presenter2:40

I was

Daniel Barenboim2:41

I was what the Americans would call a very smart kid at that age.

Presenter2:45

Could you play instinctively? Did you just sit down at it and and and and play by ear or, you know, was it uh uphill in the beginning?

Daniel Barenboim2:52

Uphill in the beginning. I don't know about the talent, I won't comment on that, but uh my parents were not ambitious in the silly way that I was.

Presenter2:59

They weren't pro

Presenter3:01

But on the other hand, you played your first concert, I think, on a platform in public at the age of seven. I mean, that that's going some.

Daniel Barenboim3:07

I mean that that

Daniel Barenboim3:10

From that point of view I was a child prodigy, and there you see here I am today, the prodigy is gone and the child has remained.

Presenter3:18

But what did you play? Do you remember what you played when you were seven?

Daniel Barenboim3:21

I played a whole lot of things. I played everything I knew. There were some Schumann pieces and I played some Prokofiev pieces and played Bach and I played Haydn. I played a mixed, very mixed And you knew all that itself?

Presenter3:31

You knew all that at seven.

Daniel Barenboim3:32

I knew all that. And then I played seven uncles, if you please. And they kept applauding. And then, you know, I went on stage and I stopped the applause. And I said to the audience, I'm sorry, I played everything I know. I don't know any more. And that was it.

Daniel Barenboim3:49

So you see I was talking too much already then.

Presenter3:52

No, no, it's perfect.

Presenter3:54

But we're sending you to a desert island anyway, so you'll have time not to talk at all when we get when you get there. But tell me about the first record you want to play there. You get eight, you know this, don't you?

Daniel Barenboim4:02

Yes, yes, I know the programme, yes. The first record I chose uh is part of the beginning of the Schopen second piano concerto in F minor, played by Arthur Rubinstein for many reasons. He knew my parents when my mother was pregnant with me, so he re literally knew me before I was I was born and was always a source of great encouragement throughout my life. And of all the pianists, he was the first one that wanted to play with me as a conductor when I started conducting. And I chose this particular record because it is one of the few records of Rubinstein playing live.

Presenter5:41

Part of the opening movement of Chopin's piano concerto number two in F minor, played by Otto Rubinstein with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini, and that was recorded at the Royal Festival Hall in 1961. You mention quite often, Daniel, so many big names in music, and you've just talked about Rubinstein, but Fritz Busch, Toscanini, Richard Strauss, Stockowski, von Carrion. They all came to Buenos Aires when you were a boy. Why?

Daniel Barenboim6:10

Because Buenos Aires was a very, very important opera theater in the world. And as the Second World War developed and parts of Europe were closed to the Jews and other parts of Europe were closed to the Nazis, Argentina seems to have been open to everybody.

Speaker 16:27

Yeah.

Speaker 16:33

Mm-hmm.

Daniel Barenboim6:33

you got the best of the German emigris, some of them not Jewish, like Erich Kleiber and Fritz Busch, who left Germany because they felt they could not make music in that stifling political climate.

Presenter6:52

It was Fritz Bush, was it not, who persuaded your parents to let you do that? No, it was his.

Daniel Barenboim6:55

No, it was his brother, Adolf Busch. Was it? His brother Adolf Busch, who was a a wonderful uh violinist. And he said to my father, You must make this boy play in public so that he has a normal contact with the public.

Presenter6:57

Was it?

Daniel Barenboim7:12

Does that

Daniel Barenboim7:15

Only when I talk to you, so.

Presenter7:17

Come on. Tell me some more about your father teaching you, because you've written that he always said to you you shouldn't do any scales, that this was to play mechanically, and as we know, your Wreath lectures have been a lot about that, that you should not play without thinking, without engaging your mind with that which you're playing. So are you advising any child learning the piano to say to their teacher, Do not run up and down the scales?

Daniel Barenboim7:41

I wish it were as simple as that. It's not enough to say you don't have to play scales. You have to say what which he did. You don't have to play scales because you can find scales in any good piece of music. I remember the great uh Italian cellist Enrico Mainardi, he had great need to play scales scales in arpeggio on the cello, and he used to do that reading the newspaper.

Speaker 17:56

Hmm.

Presenter8:09

It's just a finger exercise then, but it's not it's not making me.

Daniel Barenboim8:10

Yeah.

Daniel Barenboim8:11

But I'm fundamentally against that because I believe that if you do that, it will creep into your playing at the moment of a chorus concert and you won't be able to control it. And this is why I'm against against this type of practicing and of practicing longer than you are able to concentrate on.

Presenter8:30

Record number two.

Daniel Barenboim8:31

Record number two is the introduction to the last movement of Schumann's Fourth Symphony, a wonderful recording by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra with Wilhelm Furtwengler. And I chose this record because Furtwengler to me symbolizes somebody who really articulated very profoundly the n very nature of music making.

Presenter10:02

The introduction to the finale of Schumann's fourth symphony played by the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Wilhelm Furtwengler in 1951, that recording of a live performance again. Uh but he's also I mean a very important name in your professional life Furtwengler because you played for him didn't you Daniel in Salzburg in nineteen fifty four you were eleven years old.

Daniel Barenboim10:23

Yes.

Presenter10:24

And it changed your life.

Daniel Barenboim10:26

What helped me tremendously was he very kindly invited me to play with the Berlin Philharmonic after hearing me play in 1954, and my father thought that was too soon after the war for a Jewish boy to go to Berlin. It was the fact of going to Germany for a Jewish boy whose family had moved to Israel because this was supposed to be the homeland of the Jewish people, and to go only nine years after the end of the war to the very center of the Nazi empire really was something that was abhorrent to my parents and to me too as time went on.

Speaker 110:43

Yeah.

Presenter11:03

Uh

Presenter11:07

But an incredible compliment to invite an eleven-year-old boy to play with a purple

Daniel Barenboim11:09

Not only that, but my father explained to him the reasons why he could not accept uh the invitation and Footrenger was very understanding and gave me unsolicited or gave my parents a letter where he spoke in very positive terms about me.

Presenter11:30

Well, he said Barren Bohm is a phenomenon.

Daniel Barenboim11:33

Yeah, well anyway, and and that letter of course opened many doors. So, you are right, it did change my life.

Presenter11:41

Do you still have the letter?

Daniel Barenboim11:42

Yes.

Presenter11:43

So yeah.

Presenter11:44

Quite a valuable little document.

Daniel Barenboim11:46

Yeah.

Presenter11:46

Hmm.

Daniel Barenboim11:48

Uh

Presenter11:49

Yeah.

Daniel Barenboim11:49

Record number three.

Presenter11:49

Yeah.

Daniel Barenboim11:50

Record number three is uh Clifford Curzon playing the last movement of uh Schubert's D major piano sonata.

Daniel Barenboim12:01

There was something so lively and do you say felicious? Can you say that? Felicitous. Felicitous in his sound. And this has always been one of my favorite records.

Presenter13:16

Clifford Curzon playing the beginning of the last movement of Schubert's D major sonata, originally recorded in the Snake Maltings in Alborough in nineteen sixty four. Um I gather that he had quite a uh an alarming temper, apparently, didn't like noise and got very fussed about.

Daniel Barenboim13:31

Oh, he was yeah, he was a very fussy character. On one occasion we played in Manchester. I had been there for three weeks and he came to play my last concert.

Presenter13:45

You were conducting.

Daniel Barenboim13:45

You were conducting him? Yes. We found out to much our happiness that we were booked on the same train.

Daniel Barenboim13:54

back to London the next day. And you can imagine my surprise. I who had been there for three weeks had one suitcase, but he who came for one afternoon had five.

Daniel Barenboim14:04

including a silent keyboard. And off we took, and after about twenty minutes out of Manchester, there was an announcement on the train. And the announcement said with all passengers, please get off the train as soon as we stop at the next station. There's been a bomb alarm.

Daniel Barenboim14:24

And there was a terrific rush of everybody panicking getting off the train. Not Clifford, who pulled down the windows and cried

Daniel Barenboim14:34

Porter

Daniel Barenboim14:36

Porter in this situation, he was trying to to get a porter to carry his bags, you know.

Daniel Barenboim14:43

That was really Clifford Curzon in a nutshell outside of the music.

Presenter14:49

We hear your impersonation of a very English accent there. I mean, your ear is such that not only do you speak many languages, but you can impersonate lots of regional accents. You've spent a lot of time with the Halle. You've got to give me a bit of Lancashire.

Daniel Barenboim15:03

Oh no Right, I've lost it. I'll bring you a bunch of flowers. Janet Baker always used to say that. After concerts, we used to play concerts together and then, you know, she was in the half always trying to get out of the concert. He says, Where's my bunch of flowers?

Presenter15:07

I'll

Daniel Barenboim15:20

Janet, I hope you are listening to this.

Presenter15:24

Record number four.

Daniel Barenboim15:28

Record number four is a live performance of the Elgarcello concerto played by Jacqueline Dupre with Sir John Barbrolli live in Prague. I got it only about a year ago.

Daniel Barenboim15:43

It was sent to me with a request from Lady Barbaroli whether I would agree to release it as a as a record. And my first reaction was no, why? And then I of course I listened to the recording and I was so struck by the quality of the performance. And it was a tour that took place in January 1967, very shortly after we met. And I remembered that she had told me what a wonderful performance it had been in Prague and how inspired she felt that Sir John had been and that she had been herself. And so of course I am very glad that the record was released.

Presenter17:27

Jacqueline Dupre in a live performance in Prague in nineteen sixty seven playing the opening of Elgar's Cello Concerto with the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir John Barbaroli.

Presenter17:39

Jacqueline, to whom you were married actually here in Jerusalem, weren't you? In 1967.

Daniel Barenboim17:42

But you can sit down.

Presenter17:43

You'd met, as you say, at a party. Had you heard her play before you met her, or vice versa?

Daniel Barenboim17:48

I had never heard her play live, no, I had heard recorded, but never heard her play right.

Presenter17:52

So so you fell in love with the woman, not the musician, and it was in that order, was it?

Daniel Barenboim17:57

No, because we played. We've we played before we talked.

Presenter18:01

Oh, you di you made music before you talked?

Daniel Barenboim18:02

Yes. It was at a friend's house, uh, we'd gone there to play chamber music. Hm. To eat as well. But probably to play chambered music and we played chamber music together and so this is how

Presenter18:07

Hmm.

Speaker 118:07

Yeah.

Daniel Barenboim18:15

We got to know each other if you were to the music.

Presenter18:17

And but did you you recognise her talent in that moment?

Daniel Barenboim18:21

Oh yes, but uh you didn't have to be very bright to do that. The whole world recognized there was something completely unique about uh her being at one with the instrument and with the music. You never felt that uh you know she thought or she felt maybe it should the music should go this or that way. It simply was that.

Speaker 118:33

Mm.

Presenter18:44

And your coming together made you a golden couple, didn't you? Didn't it? I mean, you were. It must have been.

Daniel Barenboim18:50

Well she had the blonde hair.

Daniel Barenboim18:52

I do

Presenter18:53

I do. What color was yours then then? Brown.

Daniel Barenboim18:54

Brown. What do you mean then?

Presenter18:55

Yeah.

Presenter18:56

Well, yes. It's radio it's radio, so it doesn't matter, does it?

Speaker 118:57

It's radio it's radio, so it doesn't matter.

Presenter19:00

But it is true you were girl. I mean, you were feted wherever you were. You were photographed with the Beatles. I mean, it was it must have been

Presenter19:08

HEADY TIMES

Daniel Barenboim19:10

Yes, but we I don't know, somehow we managed to live a very really simple life. But uh yes, of course, the public perception, you know, of this young couple, both talented and etcetera and it was not the case of uh playing together because one was very famous and sort of managed to convince everybody to engage the other one. It was something that uh we wanted and everybody wanted.

Presenter19:40

And then a few years on multiple sclerosis set in. I mean, do what were the first signs? Do you remember what happened, how it happened, how it began to happen?

Daniel Barenboim19:51

But she she was taken to a hospital a year and a half after we were married for some very minor surgery. And when she came out of the anesthesia, she had lost uh sensation in her hands and in her legs and that was the beginning.

Presenter20:13

But you wouldn't have known at that point what it was.

Daniel Barenboim20:15

Oh no, it took it took the well the cruelty about the illness is not only what it does, but that it took in her case, it took four and a half years to diagnose.

Presenter20:27

But she was gradually getting worse and less able to. I mean, how soon did she stop have to stop playing?

Daniel Barenboim20:29

Yeah.

Daniel Barenboim20:32

She stopped playing for a year and then she started she played a little bit and then she stopped again and she played a last bunch of concerts in January, February of nineteen seventy three.

Presenter20:49

So did you both

Daniel Barenboim20:50

So she stopped playing before it was diagnosed.

Presenter20:53

Really?

Daniel Barenboim20:53

Oh yes. She was unable because she had lost all sense of uh of touch and therefore when she would pick up the bow she didn't know whether it weighed five kilos or five milligrams.

Presenter21:04

I have

Presenter21:06

So she couldn't feel it on the strings.

Daniel Barenboim21:07

She couldn't feel it and she had the diff it was the first difficulties with with eating also.

Presenter21:13

But if you didn't know what it was, I mean, she must have been in in turmoil. That's a that's

Daniel Barenboim21:18

Best

Daniel Barenboim21:20

Yep.

Presenter21:21

She died after the

Daniel Barenboim21:22

She died in eighty-seven, yes.

Presenter21:24

Mm. Mm. And during that time you you cared for her, didn't you? And you

Presenter21:30

looked after her financially and so on. But you began to live apart. You'd gone you'd taken the job the job with the Paris

Daniel Barenboim21:30

Yeah.

Daniel Barenboim21:36

Well, I was conductor of the Paris Orchestra and I was flying home to London uh at the beginning nearly every week, nearly every week.

Presenter21:38

Straight up.

Presenter21:44

Neither.

Presenter21:45

But eventually you set up a another life in Paris, didn't you, with Jelena, who is now your wife, Bashkirova, who's sitting across the room from us. That's right.

Daniel Barenboim21:50

Yes.

Speaker 321:55

That's right.

Presenter21:57

It seems to me, reading about it, I mean, there was a kind of, for all of the best and most understandable and right reasons, there was a kind of press amnesty about that.

Daniel Barenboim22:06

Yes, there was. There was. I not only f fell in love and started living with Elena, but we had two children to

Daniel Barenboim22:15

We didn't hide them as it were, you know. But uh it was never mentioned in the press until after Jack is dead and so uh I'm I will always be very grateful for that.

Speaker 122:17

To the bike.

Presenter22:31

Yeah.

Daniel Barenboim22:31

Record number five.

Daniel Barenboim22:33

The record number five is yet another live performance. And this one is of uh the Mendelssohn violin concerto played by Nathan Milstein and there was something very passionate and at the same time very elegant about his playings, not qualities that always go hand in hand. And Milstein for me somehow managed to put two qualities together in a way that made the violin the most sensuous and the most expressive instrument.

Presenter24:06

Nathan Milstein playing the opening of Mendelssohn's violin concerto with the New York Philharmonic conducted by Bruno Walter and that was recorded in New York City in nineteen forty one.

Presenter24:16

M

Presenter24:17

You personally, and Pierre Boulez has pointed this out, unlike many classical musicians, have expanded rather than contracted in in your musical tastes over the years, and you began to very

Presenter24:28

narrow, closed, conventional classical base, really, didn't you? But you've gone on to champion the likes, particularly in Chicago, of Bert Whistle and Elliott Carter and and Boulez himself. I wonder if you do that

Presenter24:40

Because you feel but for an intellectual reason rather than uh a reason of taste.

Daniel Barenboim24:46

No, curiosity, I was thinking is more the more correct word. And in fact, I think uh we have to thank Pierre Boulez that he made this music uh accessible, first of all by playing it, and secondly, by playing it with such a degree of clarity and transparency. And that opened a whole new vista for me. And it gave

Presenter25:11

But did you easily move into it? I mean, it is so different. It's so alienating, really, to the conventionally trained ear.

Daniel Barenboim25:19

The music that interests me today is the music written by composers who first of all hear what they write and are not only using it as an intellectual exercise. And also composers that you feel that they have a knowledge of what has come before them. And remember, you know, that it only needed one Christopher Columbus to discover America and that many people behave since then as if they have done so, but it was already done. And this is the difference between Boulet's and Eliot Carter's music and so many other composers today. Record number six.

Daniel Barenboim26:00

The next record is an excerpt of uh Suran Sis by Pierre Boulez, a work of great uh sonic imagination and it is not only deeply thought and or deeply felt, but a real kaleidoscopic pleasure for the ear.

Presenter27:24

An extract from Pierre Boulet's Surancise for three pianos, three harps and three percussion instruments. Daniel, you've become a very controversial figure here in Israel, the right wing here.

Presenter27:37

um disapprove deeply.

Presenter27:39

of your championship of the Palestinian cause as they see it. You've talked about this situation and this place.

Presenter27:47

preoccupying you. I mean you've you've said that kind of thing in connection with the orchestra that you've set up, the West Eastern Divan Orchestra, which you set up with the uh the late Palestinian intellectual Edward Saeed, uh an orchestra made up of both Israelis and um young Israelis and and and and young Palestinians and other Arabs.

Presenter28:07

I mean, are you seeking there by that to set an example? Are you saying to the politicians, look at this, be this is what can be done?

Daniel Barenboim28:16

Well, first of all, this is not a political project. And I perceive that you must be aware that when I say people sli smile benevolently.

Presenter28:21

I know, and you always see that.

Presenter28:27

But isn't it disingenuous to say it's not political? Because it is setting an example, isn't it?

Daniel Barenboim28:30

No.

Daniel Barenboim28:33

If you call that political, yes, I refrain from calling it political because we don't want political approval, we don't have no contacts with any governments, none whatsoever. But it is a project which recognizes what to us, to Edward Said and to me, are inevitable conclusions. The first one being that the destinies of the Israelis and the Palestinians are inextricably linked, whether we like it or not. And secondly, that there is no military solution to the conflict. It gives us the weapons to fight what we consider one of the worst elements in this conflict, and that is ignorance.

Speaker 129:03

Mm-hmm.

Presenter29:22

Mechanical number seven.

Daniel Barenboim29:25

Uh record number seven is um Edwin Fischer playing the C-sharp major prelude from book two of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier. Uh he became an example for me because he was the main propagator, if you want, if it can be expressed in this way, of the art of playing and conducting simultaneously. He was both a pianist and a conductor and he played and conducted Mozart concertos when I was a child and that's where I got the example.

Presenter30:59

Edwin Fisher playing the C sharp major prelude from Bach's well tempered clavier Book Two, and that was recorded in the mid thirties and is considered, I think, to be the earliest complete performance on record.

Daniel Barenboim31:09

Very well possible, yeah.

Presenter31:11

You've recorded it yourself, of course, book one and book two, and you've performed that recently in Paris and in London.

Presenter31:17

You're giving up Chicago, as I said, this summer. You're 64 later this year. I mean, does this mean you're going to return to the piano much more? You're going to stop the commuting.

Presenter31:27

Get off the podium more often.

Presenter31:29

and get them sit down at the piano.

Daniel Barenboim31:31

I would like to play more. You know, when I took on directorship of the State Opera in Berlin, I was already music director in Chicago. And I knew that I could only do that for a certain amount of time,'cause otherwise I would have to stop playing the piano'cause I didn't didn't have enough time to practice and to to keep the manual aspect of of playing

Speaker 131:41

Mm.

Presenter31:52

How much do you worry about that? I mean, I think that

Daniel Barenboim31:53

I don't worry about that, but I knew that I could only do that for a certain amount of time and I said ten years.

Presenter31:58

But tell me about the fingers. When they're nearly 64 years old, do they get stiff? Do you worry that they'll get stiff? Is there any arthritis in there?

Daniel Barenboim32:07

Absolutely not.

Presenter32:08

They're as supple as ever, I think.

Daniel Barenboim32:09

Absolutely not. But you know the muscles at uh sik I'm sixty-three only, you can't see.

Presenter32:14

Sixty four at the end of this year.

Daniel Barenboim32:15

But it's at the end of the year. We're all in April, you know, I mean, really. But obviously the muscles at sixty three I can't speak about sixty four because I'm not there yet. It it's far too far away for me to even envisage what that might feel like. But at sixty three the muscles obviously don't work like when at thirty, let alone at fifteen or twenty, you know. And um I find that I need more time to get myself in shape.

Speaker 132:25

I'm not there yet.

Speaker 132:37

Um

Presenter32:47

Hmm.

Daniel Barenboim32:47

to play the piano, especially after I haven't played for a while.

Presenter32:50

And what about your health in general? Because there have been reports in the newspapers earlier this year that you had to cancel a couple of concerts and you weren't very well. Do you

Presenter32:59

worry I mean, you you are a man who leads life, you know, to the full. I mean, I've seen you smoking the cigars.

Presenter33:06

I mean, do you worry about that? Do you

Daniel Barenboim33:08

No. No, I don't worry about it. And my health is absolutely perfect. I had um committed, if you want the the stupidity not to have a medical checkup for fifteen years, which you shouldn't do uh at my age, sixty three.

Presenter33:26

Definitely. Three I'll remember that.

Daniel Barenboim33:27

And you know and I found myself with a very high uh blood pressure and was taken to the hospital with that. But I feel now for over two weeks absolutely in perfect.

Presenter33:41

So you're not going to slow down at all, are you? I mean

Daniel Barenboim33:44

Yes, I might do less interviews.

Presenter33:49

Tell me about the last piece of music then and we'll get this one over. Come on.

Daniel Barenboim33:55

Well, the last record is the D major fugue from book one of the Well-Tempered Clavier, played on the harpsichord by Vanderlandowska, because that shows you that it can be stylistically very free and very grand and has the ability to have so much more color than most harpsichord players manage to get today, even if it is stylistically not according to the rules that we imagine existed in Bach's time.

Daniel Barenboim35:39

As you can see, this harpsichord playing has nothing to do with this wonderfully witty description of the harpsichord sound ascribed to Sir Thomas Beacham, who is claimed to have said that he hated the harpsichord because it reminded him of the sound of two cats copulating on a tin roof.

Presenter36:06

Well, there it was, the harpsichord, and that was Vanderlandowska playing it. She's playing the

Presenter36:13

The D major few from book one of the Park's Well Tempered Clavier. That was recorded in 1954. You might like to know that. I have three more questions for you. One is if you could only take one of those eight records to this desert island, which one would it be?

Daniel Barenboim36:26

But I have to be very honest with you, uh Sue, I wouldn't take any records of the desert island. I would take scores that I can read there, but I wouldn't take any of these records. I only did this out of politeness to you, because this is what the program is about. But basically, I enjoy more reading the scores than listening to records.

Presenter36:46

All right. We

Presenter36:49

We give you the complete works of Shakespeare. I don't know if you want those either. We give you the Bible, but we also allow you one book of your own choice. Which would that be?

Presenter36:59

A book to read.

Daniel Barenboim37:02

This is a very difficult one, you know, because if I go by statistics, the book that I have looked at most in the last fifty years of my life, and I'm only sixty three,

Daniel Barenboim37:17

Is the e ethics of Spinoza?

Presenter37:19

Okay. And last question. We give you one luxury, which should be of no practical value. You can't have a boat to escape or anything like that. Just

Presenter37:30

Well, it's your piano, isn't it? It's your piano?

Daniel Barenboim37:33

The piano is not a luxury. But give me a piano and a mattress that I can put on it to sleep.

Daniel Barenboim37:39

Why not?

Presenter37:40

Daniel Barrenbohm, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island iscs.

Daniel Barenboim37:44

Thank you.

Speaker 337:52

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.