Daniel Barenboim’s health worries his many admirers. The Israeli-Argentinian conductor, who just celebrated his 81st birthday on November 15, had to cancel the concerts he was scheduled to give in America at the end of the year. By making this choice, he complied with the recommendations of his doctors who advised him to take rest.
The great music master, a former child piano prodigy, gave the reasons for this decision in a press release: “It is with great regret that I must withdraw from the upcoming Staatskapelle concert tour in the United States and the Canada. My health simply does not allow me to undertake the arduous transatlantic journeys and the numerous domestic journeys.” The former musical director of the Orchester de Paris (1975 – 1989) was to perform in three major cities across the Atlantic, New York (November 30 and December 1), Chicago (November 28) and Toronto (two performances on November 26), a journey that would have taken him thousands of kilometers.
Also read: Daniel Barenboim resigns from Berlin Staatsoper due to “serious neurological illness”
Classical music lovers will be disappointed since the maestro had planned to replay four symphonies by Johannes Brahms. The organizers of these events have already announced the conductors who will replace him at short notice. The young Lithuanian Giedre Slekyte will conduct the Staatskappelle in Toronto, the Czech Jakub Hrusa, the future musical director of the Royal Opera House, will hold the baton in Chicago, and the Canadian Yannick Nézet-Séguin will lead the prestigious German group at Carnegie Hall in New York.
For the moment Daniel Barenboim has not given up on the three dates planned in Berlin on December 20, 21 and 22, where he will conduct the Philharmonic of the German capital. This meeting promises to be extraordinary since the great Argentine pianist Martha Argerich will, once again, be the maestro’s great musical accomplice.
Daniel Barenboïm and Martha Argerich, in 2021, play Mozart, Debussy and Bizet…
