Daniel Barenboim was born in Buenos Aires in 1942 to parents of Jewish Russian descent. He gave there his first concert at the age of 7, while at 10 he moved with his family to Israel. Barenboim first came to prominence as a pianist, and then as a conductor. He lives in Berlin and has been appointed as Chief Conductor for Life of the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin (German State Opera Berlin). He is considered to be one of the greatest conductors and pianists of our times, has given numerous concerts, has made several major recordings and has won many titles, honours and prizes.

Advocate of the dialogue and piece between Israelis and Arabs and often with a critical attitude for the Israel’s governmental policy as well as for Hezbollah, he jointly founded the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra with the late Palestinian – American intellectual Edward Said in 1999, which consists of young musicians from Israel and Arab countries. In 2005 he held the historic concert at Ramallah under severe security control, which brought conflicting response from both Israelis and Arabs. The concert which was recorded live, is perhaps the most significant contemporary performance of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony on CD.

In view of the above we read with interest his latest book “Music quickens time”. It seems that the title was inspired from the masterpiece of Thomas Mann “The Magic Mountain” and its extract “Music quickens time, she quickens us to the finest enjoyment of time, she quickens - and in so far she has moral value”.

“This book is neither for musicians nor for non-musicians. It is rather a book for those who have the curiosity to discover the analogies between music and life….”he says on the book cover of his book.

Barenboim manages to combine with ease his philosophical, political and musical culture with his humanitarian and peaceful believes in a precious for any open minded and with musical impulse reader.

Based on “Ethics” of Spinoza, quoting Aristoteles, Plato, Archilochos, Freud, Goethe, the principles of French Revolution and Athenian democracy, he connects the views of great figures of our world with the music itself, he shows their analogies, he reveals the self implied, which are not however self-evident, and makes us curious to hear music under a different perspective.

“For someone to understand music he/she must listen and hear it at the same time. Hearing is listening and thinking at the same time, in the same way that feeling is emotion together with thinking”.

Barenboim gives us a lengthy account of the conciliation efforts and the intended dialogue between Israelis and Arabs, he is self sarcastic with a Jewish anecdote and criticizes the soundtracks of mainly American TV commercials and the ignorance of TV producers for classical music.

A book that shows us that music is connected with free thinking and life itself from one of the greatest musicians of our times and mainly from a free man and an intellectual which we have read with continuous interest.