Great Performers: Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
The German baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (1925-2012) was perhaps the most influential Lieder singer of the generation whose careers blossomed immediately after World War II. When hostilities ceased he was 20 and was soon performing with some of the most influential musicians of the day – over the next decade and a half he would work with George Szell, Otto Klemperer, Rudolf Kempe, Karl Richter, Herbert von Karajan and in the world of Lieder with Gerald Moore who, more than anyone, became his musical alter ego, often under the tutelage of the great EMI producer Walter Legge.
Read more…Fischer-Dieskau's repertoire was vast, stretching back into the Baroque and embracing brand new works written especially for him, such as the title role in Aribert Reimann's opera 'Lear' and, the most durable and established, the baritone part in Benjamin Britten's War Requiem where he completed the 'national triangle' with the British Peter Pears and the Russian soprano Galina Vishnevskaya.
He sang idiomatically in many languages and with a wonderfully sure-footed technique, taking in roles as different as Wagner's Wotan, Wolfram and Hans Sachs, as well as Verdi's Rigoletto, Posa, Germont and Falstaff (not always to the satisfaction of the critics who found his singing too "studied"). He was a fine Mozartian and his vocal acting made him especially suited to opera in the studio – his Papageno has a lovely smile in the voice while his 'Figaro' Count or Don Giovanni have a genuine sense of danger to them.
In the choral repertoire he was wonderful in Brahms's Ein deutsches Requiem (which he recorded on a number of occasions) and a powerful presence in Bach's Passions, oratorios and cantatas – the warmth of his voice gave it a humanity and sincerity that makes these heartfelt utterances so direct and real.
It was song, though, where he reigned supreme. He balanced head and heart to extraordinary effect: word and music buoyed each other up and he brought the intellectual probing that he'd applied to the text in rehearsal into the studio and concert hall, and lifted it into song. He recorded all the great Lieder composers' work extensively and, not surprisingly, returned to that greatest of all song cycles, Schubert's 'Winterreise', over and over again – often in some highly distinguished company.
To end my Great Performers playlist, I've constructed a 'Winterreise' that takes in nearly all his recordings of the cycle, two songs from each. So we start in 1948 in the company of Klaus Billing and follow with Karl Reutter (1952), Gerald Moore (1955), Jörg Demus (1966), Gerald Moore (1972), Maurizio Pollini (1978), Daniel Barenboim (1980), Alfred Brendel (1986) and Murray Perahia (1990). For the final four songs we return to the 1966 recording with Demus when Dieskau's voice was at its zenith, and where his rapport with Demus is extraordinary. It's a fascinating journey in the company of a single voice and an object lesson in how to compensate for the onward march of time. As the "sap" in Fischer-Dieskau's voice reduces he balances it with an enhanced focus on the words and the psychodrama on this extraordinary work. Every cycle he recorded has something new and fascinating going on.
Fischer-Dieskau's critics complained of his overly intrusive approach to the text and his "mannered" interpretations, but at his finest he was the perfect guide to a literature that is as rich as it is broad. His influence on later generations was immense and his service to Lieder impossible to quantify.
[Due to geo-blocking restrictions, some tracks might be unavailable in certain territories.]