Daniel Barenboim conducts seated
NewsThe maestro returned last night from illness to conduct a Silvester performance of Beethoven’s ninth symphony in Berlin.
As a precautionary measure, he conducted from a chair.
No official photos have yet been released.
This is an audience shot on Facebook of Barenboim rising to receive the applause.
Nothing new! In the last years of his career Karl Böhm also conducted seated. Not hearsay, I witnessed it live on many occasions.
Also Klemperer , Mravinsky…Barenboim is in good company.
As far as sitting while conducting is concerned! I did not have the opportunity to attend concerts with Klemperer, but I certainly did with Mravinsky … to whom Barenboim can scarcely hold a candle, standing or sitting!
Couldn’t agree more!
I saw Klemperer’s last London concert. Not only conducted seated but also had to be carried on and off of the stage. Just because your legs or balance are aging doesn’t necessarily mean your mind, eyes, arms or hands are defective.
Also Reginald Goodall at the ENO.
Celi, Karajan. . .
Karajan did not sit. He leaned his butt against a padded rail.
arajan propped up by support from stand. Looked as if he were standing. But painful to watch as he gripped players en route to the podium.
Levine too
and unforgettable Sergiu Celibidache – especially his Bruckner unforgettable
His half speed Bruckner,absolutely forgettable.
Karajan too, though secretly (he had a folding seat built into the back of his podium).
Me too. And Karajan idem.
As did Otto Klemperer
Klemperer, too
Playing piano from the supine position will be even trickier but I am confident he will manage.
Seen Roger Norrington, Zubin Mehta, Charles Mackerras and a whole host of people conduct sitting down. Made no difference to the standard of their conducting, and often less distracting for the audience to watch!
I saw and heard Boehm do the last three Mozarts in the Festival Hall in London in about 1979. He was seated, excepting when he came to a subito forte or a sforzando, and there he would levitate off his stool by several feet. Tired old man, indeed!
Tired, but lucid, fully in charge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhdB8_ioGZY
As a teenager I was fascinated at how the octogenarian Böhm could deliver, despite his physical frailty and economy of movement. I tried imitate the latter, quality in my conducting (for non-majors) class, with disastrous results.
I agree. Having attended three performances of Ariadne auf Naxos in Salzburg the year before he died, I still don’t understand who he could make the work sound like Elektra. Truly amazing.
It was not just Böhm’s doing … let us give a little credit to Richard Strauss, whose orchestration for more or less “Mozart-sized” orchestra is phenominal!!!
For music lovers it is great news to know that the maestro is still conducting, sitting or standing.
Hay que cuidar ese maestro, es un fiel traductor de los sentimientos de los compositores a la interpretación.
Well, I saw no one sitting.
Since this turned to be the subject of the comments here.
Good that Barenboim is back!
I think I remember Leinsdorf conducting while seated while on tour at concerts in Iowa back in the 1980s.
I’m a devoted Barenboimer, esp. his conducting. But didn’t he announce he’d ‘retired’ from conducting? Like Tom Brady, sort of.
no, he didn’t
Bravo, Daniel! Wonderful to see you back.
Surely the story (and headline) should be about Barenboim’s return to the podium after a serious illness. Standing or sitting to conduct is a non issue and one can only guess at NL’s reasoning.
In the opera house,conductors often conducted seated in the pit.
I wonder how many – if any – of the orchestra members shown in the photo were among those who complained that Barenboim was a tyrant?