Sounding off -- be it music or politics

Wearing but one of his many hats, conductor-pianist Daniel Barenboim is music director of the Berlin Staatskapelle Orchestra, a 434-year-old institution that was isolated for decades in the former East Germany, until the Berlin Wall fell in 1989.

Because of the wall, he says, the venerable ensemble has retained a distinctive “German sound” in an increasingly international orchestra community.

“It is a sound that is less aggressive than you might be used to hearing today,” Barenboim observes. “By ‘aggressive,’ I mean harsh attacks. Instead, you have a mellow but very sustained sound. It is very much about what happens to the note after you play it. It’s the difference between punching somebody in the nose or actually putting your fist in his face and pushing very slowly.”

That sustained sound will be in the air at the Orange County Performing Arts Center on Friday when Barenboim leads the Staatskapelle in the works of two German composers, Schumann and Beethoven. The concert is part of only the second U.S. tour by the orchestra since it was founded in 1570.

But unlike the Berlin-based ensemble he has led since 1992, this musician has never operated in isolation. In fact, he often finds himself in the middle of controversy, in politics and in music -- in many cases at the same time.

In a recent telephone interview from the German capital, the 61-year-old Barenboim, who also leads the Chicago Symphony, laughed and deemed it “refreshing” to be asked to begin a conversation with a discussion of the “German sound” rather than his recent forays into contention.

He knew the questions were coming, however. Barenboim readily acknowledges that his tendency to speak his mind will probably always keep his fist pushing slowly into the face of public opinion.

Born in Buenos Aires of Russian Jewish descent and educated in Israel, he sparked an outcry in 2001 by leading the Staatskapelle in a performance of music from Richard Wagner’s opera “Tristan and Isolde” as an encore to a concert at the Israel Festival in Jerusalem -- despite the Jewish state’s unofficial ban on performing Wagner, Hitler’s favorite composer. The performance led Israeli Education Minister Limor Livnat to demand an apology.

Barenboim received Israel’s prestigious Wolf Prize, awarded to scientists and artists for “achievements in the interest of mankind and friendly relations among peoples,” after saying last month that he regretted any harm caused by the performance. In an interview with Israel Radio, he said: “If people were really hurt, of course I regret this, because I don’t want to harm anyone.”

But that “apology” did not preclude his continuing to defend his right to play Wagner in Israel. “If you don’t want to hear this music, you don’t have to do that. I respect that -- I would never suggest that Wagner should be played as part of a subscription concert,” he says with more than a degree of heat. “But I cannot accept the fact that you can sit in your house in Jerusalem and suffer because you know, at this moment, that they are playing Wagner in Tel Aviv.”

Barenboim also managed to antagonize Israelis in 2002 by braving the warnings of the army -- as well as death threats from some citizens -- to perform for an audience of Palestinian children in the West Bank city of Ramallah. News reports said that the conductor and his wife were “attacked” a few days later while eating in a Jerusalem restaurant.

Barenboim wishes to set the record straight: “There were some fundamentalist fanatics who came at me, and a bowl of salad sort of flew in the face -- but no more than that.”

Still, as soon as news of his Wolf Prize indicated that Barenboim had made musical peace with Israel, reports surfaced that thrust the conductor into more controversy. According to the reports, Barenboim, also director of Berlin’s Staatsoper (the Staatskapelle is the opera company’s resident orchestra, and the organization includes a ballet troupe as well), had threatened to quit if a reorganization of Berlin’s three opera companies went through.

The plan calls for the three companies -- the Staatsoper, the Komische Oper of the former East Berlin and the Deutsch Oper, formerly of West Berlin -- to cut costs by consolidating some operations. But Barenboim denies that he threatened to quit. “I think you threaten to resign when you say, ‘Either you do this or I go,’ ” he says. “I can’t say that. I have to wait and see what they are going to do first.

“I didn’t threaten to resign. I really didn’t. I said I would stay as long as I feel that I can work at the level I have become accustomed to,” he continues. “Obviously, if because of this [reorganization] they level everything down, pay less salary to the musicians, then they will lose -- then I might think about resigning.

“I was extremely critical of the whole setup, and I still am. I don’t think it will function. I think in the best case it is very naive and in the worst case a straight-out lie -- and I am really measuring my words here, even though it may not sound like it. The [Staatsoper] is the only one that is in a healthy condition.... The finances are in good shape, and the house has a very high attendance rate. Health is not contagious. Sickness is contagious, and this is what I am afraid of.”

Orchestra leaders in the United States often decry the paucity of federal money for their organizations that forces them to rely on fundraising from the private sector. As director of both an American and a European orchestra, Barenboim says both systems have their pros and cons.

In the U.S., “giving donations to cultural institutions -- there are tax benefits for that,” he says. “It is a more democratic way of paying your taxes. If you care more about music, you give to the Chicago Symphony. If you care more about sports, you give to the [basketball team the Chicago] Bulls.

“Here, you just pay your taxes and expect the government to administer those monies as well as possible.”

Barenboim launched his performing career as a pianist in 1950, at age 7. Now, he says, after more than half a century of performing, he accepts that he will face criticism and perhaps an occasional flying salad.

“Anybody that does anything in this world is considered controversial,” he asserts. “And that is OK. ‘Controversial’ has become a negative word in our politically correct society, but it is an inevitable quality in anybody who has anything to say.

“You know, I was born with a certain amount of talent. I started very young. I’ve been performing music for more than 50 years,” he muses.

“And if I have achieved some notoriety in that time, then that notoriety gives me the responsibility to try and do something about issues that I care about.

“Notoriety is not to sit at home and read clippings about how wonderful you are. If the world gives you notoriety, it is a vote of confidence. It means that they are expecting you to do something that you know is right.”

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Berlin Staatskapelle

Where: Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa

When: Friday, 8 p.m.

Price: $20-$60

Contact: (949) 553-2422 or www.PhilharmonicSociety.org