Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau

The baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau was born in Berlin in 1925, the youngest of three sons of a philologist and a teacher, descendants of a family with rich musical tradition (one ancestor was a Saxon chamberlain von Dieskau, for whom Bach had written his "Peasant Cantata" in 1742). Fischer-Dieskau grew up in the crisis-ridden Berlin of the Weimar Republic, under the tyranny of the National Socialists. But he continued to sharpen his ear for art and from the age of 16 had his voice trained first by Georg A. Walter. In 1942, he switched to Hermann Weißenborn at the Berlin Music Academy, but was unable to avoid being drafted and sent to the front, where he gave his first concerts in an American prison camp in Italy. In 1947, he resumed his studies with Weißenborn and from then on his artistic life path was less winding. Fischer-Dieskau first sang for the Berlin radio. Word quickly got around that a new and astonishing talent had appeared on the scene, making further important appearances possible. In 1951, he appeared at the Salzburg Festival with Mahler's "Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen" alongside Wilhelm Furtwängler, travelled to the USA for the first time shortly afterwards, and presented himself to the public again at the festival in Prades with Winterreise. Soon after, he received high cultural recognition when he was allowed to portray Wolfram in Tannhäuser in Bayreuth in 1954 under Furtwängler's direction. In the same year, he sang the title role in the famous Falstaff performance at the Vienna State Opera directed by Lucchino Visconti, and in 1957 he became a permanent member of the house ensemble. In the following years, Fischer-Dieskau was one of the stars of the world's great concert halls, preferring to perform at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Vienna State Opera, the Bavarian State Opera at London's Covent Garden Opera, and at major festivals. He finally retired from the stage in 1992 after a 45-year career but remained active as a conductor, reciter, author, and teacher. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau was a versatile musician throughout his career. Opera formed the one pillar of his art. At the same time as his career on the Singspiel stages, however, he demonstrated his ability as a song interpreter and developed into one of the most important personalities in this field. By the mid-1980s, he had recorded around 3,000 songs from about 100 composers and made a significant contribution to ensuring that the art song retained its important place in the consciousness of listeners. In 1973, he embarked on another career as a conductor when he stood in with great success for the ailing Otto Klemperer in a recording of Brahms' "Die schöne Magelone".