Polarpriset till Daniel Barenboim!

BBC skriver idag, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8002684.stm, att den argentinsk-israeliske pianisten Daniel Barenboim har fått ett mycket entusiasisk mottagande när han, i Kairo, dirigerade Kairos symfoniorkester i Beethovens femte symfoni :
The famed conductor and pianist has long strived to use music to bring people together in the region.
He is a supporter of Palestinian statehood and a critic of Israeli policy toward the Palestinians.
His visit - the result of an invitation from the Austrian embassy in Cairo - is believed to be the first by a prominent Israeli musician in Egypt, one of the few Arab states to have signed a peace deal with Israel.
As well as conducting the orchestra, Mr Barenboim played Beethoven's Pathetique piano sonata. Answering criticism that the time was not right for such a visit, following Israel's offensive in Gaza earlier this year, Mr Barenboim said bringing musicians from both sides together was not a political project, but a human one.
"For 60 years they have been trying with force and they haven't solved anything," he said during rehearsals for the concert. "Every military victory of Israel has left it politically weaker."

Mr Barenboim founded the joint Arab-Israeli orchestra, the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, with the late Palestinian-American writer Edward Said in 1999 to further cultural exchange between young people in Israel and the Arab world.
His views earned him an honorary Palestinian Authority passport in 2007.

The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra är alltså en ungdomsorkester. Daniel Barenboim har om denna sagt:
The Divan is not a love story, and it is not a peace story. It has very flatteringly been described as a project for peace. It isn't. It's not going to bring peace, whether you play well or not so well. The Divan was conceived as a project against ignorance. A project against the fact that it is absolutely essential for people to get to know the other, to understand what the other thinks and feels, without necessarily agreeing with it.

I statuterna för Polarpriset sägs:
Without any restrictions of nationality, the prize is to be "awarded for significant achievements in music and/or musical activity, or for achievements which are found to be of great potential importance for music or musical activity, and it shall be referable to all fields within or closely connected with music".

Det vore väl ett utmärkt, egentligen närmast självklart, val att ge Polarpriset till Daniel Barenboim?! Är han naiv? Nej, jag tycker inte det, han är en brobyggare.

Och dessutom är han ju så bra, som musiker och dirigent!! Jag köpte för några månader sedan en CD-box med Beethovens symfonier, inspelade av Barenboim och Staatskapelle Berlin, eftersom jag var så trött på mina gamla LP-skivor med von Karajans inspelningar. Förutom att LP är så knastrigt (tänk att man stod ut med det under alla år!) så är Karajan alltför pompös och svulstig. Med Barenboim blir Beethovensymfonierna kraftfulla, spänstiga, ibland glada, nästan lyckliga, som den första, ibland allvarliga som den femte, men ändå inte smetiga. Allra mest gillar jag nog den tredje, Eroican. Tredje satsen, ett allegro vivace, är så kolossalt svängig!

Alltså: Polarpriset till Daniel Barenboim!