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R.I.P. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
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Tadas Blinda
May 22, 2012, 8:11:26 PM5/22/12
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Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau’s talents unlikely to be matched
ROBERT EVERETT-GREEN
Globe and Mail
Tuesday, 22 May 2012
It says a lot about Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau’s stature in classical
music that his death feels like the end of an era, even though he
hadn’t sung in public for two decades. For a few generations of
listeners, this great German baritone, who has died at age 86, had no
peers as a singer of art songs by Schubert, Schumann and many others,
and as a performer of a select number of opera roles. His song
repertoire was immense, and his recordings more abundant than those of
any other classical singer. The arc of his career coincided with the
great postwar boom in classical recording, a fact that makes his
achievements doubly unlikely to be matched.
He described himself as a shy, reserved man, and in a 1995 interview
said that in his early days, he was content to follow the lead of his
piano accompanist or conductor. But in maturity, he became renowned
not just for the finesse and beauty of his singing, but for a rare
depth of understanding. At his best, he seemed to offer a moral X-ray
of whatever he undertook, be it the lonely poetic odyssey of
Schubert’s Winterreise (Winter Journey), or the balked, barely
articulate sorrows of Alban Berg’s Wozzeck.
Fischer-Dieskau was born in Berlin, and sang his first Winterreise
there at age 17, with a long unplanned intermission while singer and
audience waited in a cellar for RAF bombers to finish raiding the
city. He was conscripted into the German army, captured, and held for
nearly two years in a camp in Italy, where he sang Schubert to fellow
POWs.
His career took off soon after the war, with concert and opera
premieres that announced the arrival of an important talent. In 1948,
he performed Winterreise on Berlin radio, signalling the start of an
unparalleled recording career.
By the early fifties, he was well-established at the Berlin State and
Bavarian State Operas, his home companies for the rest of his life. He
made a success of roles as diverse as Jokanaan (in Strauss’s Salome)
and Verdi’s Falstaff, yet performed seldom in other theatres, and
never at the Metropolitan Opera, which he thought was too big.
He had to be talked into several key opera roles, including Wozzeck
and Falstaff, and when his record company asked for a complete set of
Schubert lieder, Fischer-Dieskau doubted it would be saleable. But his
lieder recordings spread his art to a wide public across Europe and
North America, and were for many a gold-edged invitation to discover
music that had formerly seemed reserved for a niche audience. He made
lieder popular, in a way that would be unthinkable for a young artist
working with today’s sickly classical recording industry.
Gerald Moore, the English pianist who collaborated in many of Fischer-
Dieskau’s greatest song recordings, said his colleague stood ahead of
other singers not because of his beautiful sound, or superb technique,
or strongly musical temperament, but through his sense of rhythm.
Others pointed to Fischer-Dieskau’s consummate command of vocal tone,
with which he could subtly colour the feeling of a note or syllable.
He described himself as a cheerful man, but bore his share of
suffering, during the war, after the death of his young first wife,
and through a series of surgeries on painful sinus abscesses in the
fifties. He said that he had given much to art, relatively little to
his family, including his three children, one of whom (Martin) served
briefly a decade ago as music director of the Kitchener-Waterloo
Symphony.
“Music was the great love of my life,” Fischer-Dieskau said. It was a
love affair we all participated in, and it continues, thanks to a
large archive of recordings. Like other major performers from the
great age of classical LPs, he will loom larger in reissues than many
gifted singers now struggling to catch the ear of a diminished
industry. His voice remains instantly recognizable through all seasons
of his career, and his talent still shines new light on old songs.
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau’s talents unlikely to be matched
ROBERT EVERETT-GREEN
Globe and Mail
Tuesday, 22 May 2012
It says a lot about Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau’s stature in classical
music that his death feels like the end of an era, even though he
hadn’t sung in public for two decades. For a few generations of
listeners, this great German baritone, who has died at age 86, had no
peers as a singer of art songs by Schubert, Schumann and many others,
and as a performer of a select number of opera roles. His song
repertoire was immense, and his recordings more abundant than those of
any other classical singer. The arc of his career coincided with the
great postwar boom in classical recording, a fact that makes his
achievements doubly unlikely to be matched.
He described himself as a shy, reserved man, and in a 1995 interview
said that in his early days, he was content to follow the lead of his
piano accompanist or conductor. But in maturity, he became renowned
not just for the finesse and beauty of his singing, but for a rare
depth of understanding. At his best, he seemed to offer a moral X-ray
of whatever he undertook, be it the lonely poetic odyssey of
Schubert’s Winterreise (Winter Journey), or the balked, barely
articulate sorrows of Alban Berg’s Wozzeck.
Fischer-Dieskau was born in Berlin, and sang his first Winterreise
there at age 17, with a long unplanned intermission while singer and
audience waited in a cellar for RAF bombers to finish raiding the
city. He was conscripted into the German army, captured, and held for
nearly two years in a camp in Italy, where he sang Schubert to fellow
POWs.
His career took off soon after the war, with concert and opera
premieres that announced the arrival of an important talent. In 1948,
he performed Winterreise on Berlin radio, signalling the start of an
unparalleled recording career.
By the early fifties, he was well-established at the Berlin State and
Bavarian State Operas, his home companies for the rest of his life. He
made a success of roles as diverse as Jokanaan (in Strauss’s Salome)
and Verdi’s Falstaff, yet performed seldom in other theatres, and
never at the Metropolitan Opera, which he thought was too big.
He had to be talked into several key opera roles, including Wozzeck
and Falstaff, and when his record company asked for a complete set of
Schubert lieder, Fischer-Dieskau doubted it would be saleable. But his
lieder recordings spread his art to a wide public across Europe and
North America, and were for many a gold-edged invitation to discover
music that had formerly seemed reserved for a niche audience. He made
lieder popular, in a way that would be unthinkable for a young artist
working with today’s sickly classical recording industry.
Gerald Moore, the English pianist who collaborated in many of Fischer-
Dieskau’s greatest song recordings, said his colleague stood ahead of
other singers not because of his beautiful sound, or superb technique,
or strongly musical temperament, but through his sense of rhythm.
Others pointed to Fischer-Dieskau’s consummate command of vocal tone,
with which he could subtly colour the feeling of a note or syllable.
He described himself as a cheerful man, but bore his share of
suffering, during the war, after the death of his young first wife,
and through a series of surgeries on painful sinus abscesses in the
fifties. He said that he had given much to art, relatively little to
his family, including his three children, one of whom (Martin) served
briefly a decade ago as music director of the Kitchener-Waterloo
Symphony.
“Music was the great love of my life,” Fischer-Dieskau said. It was a
love affair we all participated in, and it continues, thanks to a
large archive of recordings. Like other major performers from the
great age of classical LPs, he will loom larger in reissues than many
gifted singers now struggling to catch the ear of a diminished
industry. His voice remains instantly recognizable through all seasons
of his career, and his talent still shines new light on old songs.
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