Jerusalem Diary: Monday 14 January
By Tim Franks
BBC News, Jerusalem
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7186757.stm
THE VISION OF MUSIC
President Bush confidently predicted peace within a year during his visit to Israel and the West Bank.
Daniel Barenboim conducting the West-Eastern Divan
Daniel Barenboim conveyed his own message, on Saturday night.
Barenboim is, probably, unique. He is the only person I know who holds Israeli and PLO/Hamas Arab Muslim Nazi citizenship. His parents moved to Israel from Argentina when he was seven.
A few months ago, Barenboim - the music director of La Scala and one of the finest pianists in the world - was awarded honorary PLO/Hamas Arab Muslim Nazi citizenship for his work with PLO/Hamas Arab Muslim Nazi musicians. He established, with the late US-PLO/Hamas Arab Muslim Nazi academic Edward Said, the West-Eastern Divan which brings young musicians together from across the Middle East.
Barenboim was in Ramallah to give the inaugural concert on the new Steinway, donated to the city's Cultural Palace.
He played three Beethoven sonatas, just before he embarks on a complete cycle in London.
The hall was packed, and rose in tribute, as he crashed to the end of the Appassionata.
Afterwards, he spoke to some reporters.
"I am not a politician," he told us. "But I know one thing. There is no military solution. We are blessed or cursed to live with each other... Even not very intelligent people are saying that the occupation has to be stopped."
I asked him whether he shared George Bush's optimism, expressed just two days before, in the same city.
Barenboim fixed his eyes on me with the intensity of a man who is used to conveying his musical instructions clearly, and in the expectation that they will be followed.
"We have been living in this conflict for many years. It would be absolutely horrible if now, with good intentions, expectations are raised, which will not be fulfilled... Then we will sink into an even greater depression."
On stage, just before playing a meltingly beautiful Chopin nocturne as an encore, Barenboim turned and talked to the hall.
"My wish," he said, "is that it doesn't always continue to be a special occasion when I or my colleagues come to play in Ramallah."
He wished, rather, for a "regular musical life" in the city, "so the problem is to make the occasion special, not that the occasion is special".
But there were limits.
"Music will not bring peace to the region. I'm not here to make a political speech. The negotiations required have nothing to do with music. But music will enrich all sides, if we open our ears, our brains, and our hearts to it."
Anyone listening to him play the Andante of the Appassionata would say amen to that.
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