In 1952, the Barenboim family moved to Israel. In 1954 he went to Salzburg to take part in Igor Markevitch's conducting classes. There he met famous people such as Wilhelm Furtwängler whose conducting inspired him. Furtwängler was very impressed by the young boy and asked him to play Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, but his father did not want him to play in Berlin because it was too soon after the Nazis had murdered millions of Jews.