Daniel Barenboim

Daniel Barenboim – Works by Elgar (Remastered) (1975/2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 43:56 minutes | 787 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Glossa

Can there be a more prodigiously gifted and versatile musician in the world today than Daniel Barenboim? Symphonic and opera conductor as well concert pianist, recitalist, chamber musician, Lieder accompanist par excellence, the Argentinian-born Israeli Renaissance man of music is also one of the most extensively recorded artists of all time. Sony Classical is proud to present the first complete retrospective collection of his albums for CBS/Sony Classical and RCA Red Seal.

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Daniel Barenboim – On My New Piano (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:08:16 minutes | 1000 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Deutsche Grammophon (DG)

Daniel Barenboim’s first solo recording on the remarkable new concert grand Barenboim-Maene which he developed in collaboration with instrument maker Chris Maene

Barenboim has selected works by four keyboard masters to display his piano’s timbral and tonal capabilities: “I’ve fallen in love with my new piano”, he exclaims, “and want to spend as much time with it as possible.”
Conceived and commissioned by Barenboim himself, the new piano was developed and built by esteemed Belgian instrument maker Chris Maene, with support from Steinway & Sons.

Barenboim was inspired to create a new piano after playing Franz Liszt’s restored grand piano during a trip to Siena in September 2011. Struck by the vital differences in sound of an instrument constructed with straight, parallel strings rather than the diagonal crossed ones of a contemporary instrument, he set out to create a brand new instrument that combines the best of the old and the new and offers a real alternative for pianists and music-lovers in the 21st century.

Barenboim says: “The transparency and tonal characteristics of the traditional straight-strung instruments is so different from the homogenous tone produced by the modern piano across its entire range. The clearly distinguishable voices and color across its registers of Liszt’s piano inspired me to explore the possibility of combining these qualities with the power, looks, evenness of touch, stability of tuning and other technical advantages of the modern Steinway…”

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Daniel Barenboim – Mendelssohn: Lieder ohne Worte (Remastered) (1974/2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:12:28 minutes | 2,03 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Deutsche Grammophon (DG)

When in 1973 the 22-year-old Daniel Adni first recorded the Songs without Words (as part of a three-LP Mendelssohn recital) he had the field to himself. Nowadays things are rather different, with notable competition coming from the searching Livia Rev, and in sharper contrast, the volatile Daniel Barenboim, whose characterization does yet more to emphasize the variety of the set as a whole.

The obvious difference between the two Daniels is choice of tempo. Almost always, and so often in blander contexts, Adni favours a more leisurely approach, robbing his phrasing of an element of longer forward flow, and causing several Andante numbers to outstay their welcome since he includes every repeat. The three delightful gondola songs are certainly too static to convey the liquidity of water. And he surely takes too solemn a view of the engaging Duet at the end of Book 2, marked Andante con moto. Conversely, I sometimes thought Barenboim just a shade too hasty for the music’s good, not just in agitato contexts but also in a piece such as the meditative D major Adagio in the final book. Yet there is always a stronger sense of motivation behind his spontaneous phrasing, and always his melody sings and soars in response to the connotation of Mendelssohn’s title.

All that said, there is much that is very pleasing in Adni’s self-effacing, caring, truly serious musicianship. As I remarked when the record first emerged, such emotional as well as pianistic composure is not encountered every day of the week from one so young. And the round, mellow warmth of his tone is never for a moment in doubt in this very clear, albeit close, recording.’ (Gramophone)

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Daniel Barenboim – Franz Schubert : Piano Sonatas (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 05:51:34 minutes | 5,55 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Deutsche Grammophon (DG)

Somewhat surprisingly, Daniel Barenboim recorded the 11 complete piano sonatas of Franz Schubert for the first time between 2013 and 2014, thus making this Deutsche Grammophon box set an important first-time release. For admirers of Barenboim’s intellectual depth and clean playing, his approach to these works may be ideal, because Schubert’s music is always vulnerable to overly ripe or sloppy interpretations, and it takes a balance of ideas and emotions to convey the essence of the sonatas. While Barenboim has established himself as a masterful accompanist in Schubert, playing chamber works and lieder cycles, he has touched the solo keyboard works less often. However, these performances of the sonatas are as cogent and competent as if he had specialized in them for decades. Touch is critical in Schubert, and Barenboim’s refined playing shows a remarkable control of dynamics, colors, and shadings, which, together with his eloquent phrasing and careful use of the pedals, make it subtle and compelling for its variety. While the studio recordings are a bit dry, presumably to aid in clarity, the piano has a slightly ringing quality in the upper register and a warm middle to low range, so it has an attractive tone without studio enhancements. Highly recommended.

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Daniel Barenboim – Elgar: The Dream of Gerontius, Op. 38 (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:33:53 minutes | 1,57 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Decca Music Group Ltd.

Daniel Barenboim’s ‘The Dream of Gerontius’ is a significant addition to his critically-acclaimed Elgar series with Staatskapelle Berlin. This is Barenboim’s first recording of Elgar’s greatest choral masterpiece. Featuring the finest array of English-speaking soloists: Catherine Wyn-Rogers, Andrew Staples and Thomas Hampson.

The album is released to coincide with Barenboim’s performances of Elgar’s Symphonies 1 & 2 with the Staatskapelle Berlin at the BBC Proms on 15 & 16 July

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Daniel Barenboim – Elgar: Sea Pictures. Falstaff (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 58:56 minutes | 1015 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Decca Music Group Ltd.

No conductor working today has done more to internationalise Elgar’s music than Daniel Barenboim. Like Georg Solti and Bernard Haitink before him, Barenboim has recognised that the best of Elgar’s music deserves to be compared with that of his European contemporaries, and that its roots are often more firmly embedded in Austro-German late Romanticism than they are in the pastoral landscapes of Edwardian England. He made an extensive series of Elgar recordings with the London Philharmonic in the 1970s, but returned to the composer in 2014 with a recording of the Second Symphony, followed two years later by the First. Magnificently played by the Berlin Staatskapelle, with its burnished, dark central European sound, both performances were a revelation, immediately reconnecting Elgar with the composers he most admired, Brahms and Richard Strauss. If Barenboim’s subsequent Berlin recording of The Dream of Gerontius was less exceptional, it still cast fresh light on a staple of the British choral repertoire.
Elgar: Sea Pictures; Falstaff album art work

The two works on this latest disc present a very different challenge, however. Where the symphonies and even Gerontius relate very obviously to European archetypes, there’s something much more indelibly English about both Falstaff and the song cycle Sea Pictures. Falstaff is the nearest that Elgar came to composing a Straussian tone poem (he called it a “symphonic study”), but there is something missing here. Technically once again the performance is impeccable, but it misses a nostalgic dimension that the finest British recordings – Adrian Boult’s, John Barbirolli’s – identify more convincingly without ever becoming twee, which Barenboim’s performance unexpectedly does.

The Latvian mezzo Elīna Garanča is the soloist in Sea Pictures. Janet Baker’s recording with Barbirolli is the benchmark here, and though Garanča’s diction can be indistinct and she doesn’t match Baker’s conviction in the fusty Victorian poetry that Elgar sets, her golden sound and warm, supple phrasing are still very appealing on their own terms.

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Daniel Barenboim – Debussy: Fantaisie, Violin Sonata, Cello Sonata, La mer (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:12:24 minutes | 679 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Deutsche Grammophon (DG)

In 1949, two Argentinian child prodigies met and made music together for the first time – Martha Argerich and Daniel Barenboim – the rest, as they say, is history. Childhood friends, they rank as two of the world’s golden musicians as well as incomparable pianists, and over the years they have developed a close artistic partnership. To celebrate her 80th birthday, Argerich releases her first recording of Debussy’s Fantaisie accompanied by Maestro Barenboim and “his” Staatskapelle Berlin.

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Daniel Barenboim – Beethoven Trios (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 03:26:50 minutes | 1,98 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Deutsche Grammophon (DG)

An offspring of the Baroque trio sonata, the piano trio—usually denoting a work for piano, violin, and cello—was still in its infancy when Beethoven penned his first essay in the genre around 1791. Although he declined to assign an opus number to the early Trio in E-flat major (which would be published posthumously in 1830), the composer reportedly considered it “one of his worthiest experiments in the art of composition.”

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Daniel Barenboim – Beethoven: Piano Sonatas Nos. 27-32 (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:41:42 minutes | 2,65 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Deutsche Grammophon (DG)

The legendary Daniel Barenboim, among his countless other accomplishments, is one of the world’s foremost Beethoven experts, having played or conducted just about every note the composer ever wrote. This project – recorded completely during this year’s lockdown – is set to become one of the classical recording events of the year!

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Daniel Barenboim – Beethoven: Piano Sonatas Nos. 20-26 (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:51:42 minutes | 1,84 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Deutsche Grammophon (DG)

The legendary Daniel Barenboim, among his countless other accomplishments, is one of the world’s foremost Beethoven experts, having played or conducted just about every note the composer ever wrote. This project – recorded completely during this year’s lockdown – is set to become one of the classical recording events of the year!

(more…)

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Daniel Barenboim – Beethoven: Piano Sonatas Nos. 13-19 (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:24:55 minutes | 2,35 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Deutsche Grammophon (DG)

The legendary Daniel Barenboim, among his countless other accomplishments, is one of the world’s foremost Beethoven experts, having played or conducted just about every note the composer ever wrote. This project – recorded completely during this year’s lockdown – is set to become one of the classical recording events of the year!

(more…)

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Daniel Barenboim – Beethoven: Piano Sonatas Nos. 7-12 (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:08:32 minutes | 2,09 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Deutsche Grammophon (DG)

Daniel Barenboim was born in Buenos Aires on November 15, 1942, into a family of Ukrainian Jewish descent. Daniel’s mother was his first piano teacher; he later studied with his father, Enrique Barenboim, who was an eminent music professor. After playing for the noted violinist Adolph Busch, who was impressed by his talent, Daniel made his debut recital at the age of seven. In 1951, he played at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and observed Igor Markevitch’s conducting class. The family moved to Israel in 1952; two years later, Daniel went back to Salzburg for a conducting course with Markevitch, piano studies with Edwin Fischer, and chamber music performance with Enrico Mainardi. He studied conducting with Carlo Zecchi at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, also attending Nadia Boulanger’s music theory and composition class at Fontainebleau. His U.S. debut was at New York’s Carnegie Hall on January 20, 1957, in Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 1, with Leopold Stokowski conducting the Symphony of the Air. Debuts with leading orchestras included the London Symphony Orchestra (New York, 1968), Berlin Philharmonic (1969), and New York Philharmonic (1970). Since then he has guest conducted virtually all of the world’s leading orchestras. In 1967, Barenboim married the brilliant cellist Jacqueline Du Pré, with whom he made several exceptional recital recordings. Unfortunately, this partnership ended when Du Pré contracted multiple sclerosis, which forced her to end her playing career in 1972. She died in 1987. In 1989 he was named as Sir George Solti’s successor as music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In 1992, Barenboim became music director of the Berlin State Opera, then named chief conductor for life by its orchestra in 2002. In 1999, with Palestinian-American scholar Edward Said, Barenboim co-founded the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, a summer youth orchestra designed to foster understanding and cooperation, and he established the Barenboim-Said Academy in Berlin. Devoted to the training of young Arab and Israeli musicians, the school opened in 2016. A recording of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 by the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra appeared in 2013. Barenboim has a rich recorded repertoire as a conductor, pianist, accompanist, and chamber music player. Interestingly, as a pianist, he tends to focus on Mozart, Beethoven, and the early Romantics, while as a conductor he favors later Romantic music, particularly Brahms and Bruckner (he has won a medal from the Bruckner Society of America). Barenboim’s recorded output continued to be abundant through his eighth decade, including not only standard repertory, but such novelties as On My New Piano (2016), an album devoted to the capabilities of an instrument custom-made for Barenboim by Belgian builder Chris Maene, and based on a piano owned by Liszt. As a conductor he continued to undertake lengthy, difficult scores by the likes of Bruckner and Mahler. His 2017 recording of Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius with the Staatskapelle Berlin was critically acclaimed.
– Joseph Stevenson, James Manheim

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Daniel Barenboim – Beethoven: Piano Sonatas Nos. 1-6 (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:18:06 minutes | 2,24 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Deutsche Grammophon (DG)

Daniel Barenboim was born in Buenos Aires on November 15, 1942, into a family of Ukrainian Jewish descent. Daniel’s mother was his first piano teacher; he later studied with his father, Enrique Barenboim, who was an eminent music professor. After playing for the noted violinist Adolph Busch, who was impressed by his talent, Daniel made his debut recital at the age of seven. In 1951, he played at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and observed Igor Markevitch’s conducting class.

(more…)

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