Few prominent classical musicians—and few prominent Germans—have spoken out about Israel’s brutal war in Palestine quite as consistently, as passionately, and with as much attention to detail as the violinist (and son of Daniel) Michael Barenboim. When I met him last month in a quiet corner of a beer garden near the Barenboim-Said Akademie in Berlin, where he is a professor of violin and chamber music, he discussed the conflict with precise conviction. Many musicians and others in the field who are outspoken about political issues fall prey to a certain dilettantism: as Kirill Gerstein put it in VAN, “Going on stage as a performer and having something to say in the language of music often doesn’t equate with an ability to make sensible and worthwhile pronouncements about life and politics.” Not so with Barenboim. In our interview, I had a different impression: that music, when weighed against so much Palestinian suffering, had become almost an afterthought.
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