The only child of musical parents, Barenboim studied first with his mother, then with his father. After his debut in Buenos Aires at the age of seven, his parents (descendants of Russian Jews from Odessa) decided to move to Israel. On the way, they stopped at Salzburg where ten-year-old Daniel played and conducted at the Mozarteum. In the mid-1950s he studied in Europe for three consecutive summers: conducting with Igor Markevitch in Salzburg; composition with Nadia Boulanger in Paris; violin, composition and theory at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome; and conducting with Carlo Zecchi in Siena. Interestingly, he did not study piano with anyone after the tuition from his father.

Barenboim played in Europe in 1955 and made his London debut the...