One Lesson, Four Songs, and a Sacrifice

The fourth wall of the concert hall is as impermeable as that in any theatre; accordingly, there was a brief moment of disorientation when, instead of picking up his baton to lead the Staatskapelle, Daniel Barenboim picked up a microphone and turned to address the audience. Everything, he assured us, was fine: Dorothea Röschmann – scheduled to sing Strauss’ Vier letzte Lieder that evening – was not ill, and there had been no last minute changes to the programme. He simply wanted to say a few words about Elliott Carter’s Instances, on the occasion of its German première. Mr Barenboim has been a devoted ambassador for Carter over the past several years, programming several of his later-period works into high-profile concerts, including Mr Barenboim’s own seventieth birthday concert, which featured Carter’s Dialogues II sandwiched between…