Thielemann in Chicago: I talk to Barenboim all the time

In an exclusive interview on returning to the Chicago Symphony for the first time since 1995, Christian Thielemann tells Dennis Polkow about his close relationship with Daniel Barenboim.

Speaking with a player in German about Daniel Barenboim, who should be calling Thielemann’s cell phone at that very moment? Daniel Barenboim. “Sometimes we have daily contact,” Thielemann admitted after the rehearsal back in his dressing room. “He wanted to know how the rehearsals were going and so on. He came to my rehearsal of ‘Rheingold’ [in Berlin] and Elena his wife came for all the ‘Ring’ cycle. I went to see him at his home. He lives not far away from where I grew up, where my mother still lives. He is so warm-hearted and so nice with me. In our business, it doesn’t happen very often that you have colleagues who are friends. There’s so much envy and misunderstandings and whatever.”

Read on here.