Parallels and Paradoxes

Explorations in Music and Society

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by Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said,

Edited by Ara Guzelimian

Vintage Books: Random House

Due/Published March 2004, 208 pages, paper

ISBN 1400075157

New in paper (S04)

This exchange between two of the most prominent figures in contemporary culture, Daniel Barenboim, Music Director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin, and Edward W. Said, the eminent literary critic and scholar and a leading expert on the Middle East, grew out of the acclaimed Carnegie Hall Talks. A unique and impassioned discussion about politics and culture, it touches on many diverse subjects: the importance of a sense of place; the differences between writing prose and music; the conductors Wilhelm FŸrtwangler and Arturo Toscanini; Beethoven as the greatest sonata composer; the difficulty of playing Wagner; the sound at Bayreuth; the writers Balzac, Dickens, and Adorno; the importance of great teachers; and the power of culture to transcend all national and political differences--something they both witnessed when they brought together young Arab and Israeli musicians to play at Weimar in 1999. Although Barenboim and Said have very different points of view, they act as catalysts for each other.