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Daniel Barenboim made his debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker first as a pianist in 1964 and five years later as a conductor. In the now six decades of working together, Barenboim has performed in numerous symphony concerts with the orchestra and several times at the prestigious Waldbühne and New Year’s Eve Concerts. He has also conducted the Europakonzert more often than any other guest conductor. Highlights of their extensive discography include complete recordings of Mozart’s piano concertos, which Barenboim conducted from the piano, Bruckner’s symphonies, and recordings of the Wagner operas Tristan und Isolde and Parsifal.

Barenboim is one of the very few figures to have achieved an equally distinguished career as an instrumentalist and as a great conductor. As a pianist, too, the musician, who has performed under three of the Philharmoniker’s chief conductors, is an integral part of the orchestra’s history. Barenboim’s dedication to social and political issues, which forms a key part of his artistic profile, has also been shown time and again in his partnership with the Philharmoniker, such when he accompanied the orchestra on its first concert tour to Israel in spring 1990; or when he conducted the Staatskapelle Berlin in a special concert for refugees and aid workers organised jointly with the Philharmoniker in 2016. The musical event that took place on 12 November 1989 at the Philharmonie Berlin will never be forgotten by all those who were present: just three days after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Barenboim performed works by Beethoven as a pianist and conductor in a special concert for citizens of the GDR.

Our playlist features Barenboim as a soloist in piano concertos by Mozart, Brahms and Bartók, and as a conductor of works from the German-Austrian, French and South American repertoire. In the finale of the selection, you can relive Barenboim’s first – but fortunately not last – joint appearance with Martha Argerich with the Berliner Philharmoniker in a performance of Schumann’s Piano Concerto. The two international stars with their Argentinian background have been friends since childhood.