Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (1925 – 2012)

"His greatest achievement as an artist is maybe that he has given us an answer to the eternal question "prima la musica vs prima le parole"? (music, or words first?) He showed us that question in itself is false: in his interpretations, he created a unity between text and music unlike few before or after him. He set the benchmark in enunciation, and he emphasised key words through changing the sound of the note on which the word was sung. Thus, he not only clarified the sense of the word, but he let every syllable and every note sound together and thereby created a unity of harmony and colours unlike anyone else. For the word "death", for example, he didn't only use a different colour when pronouncing it (because he knew it was an extraordinary word), no, he also knew which colour to use for the note on which "death" was sung. He created a new dimension of the comprehensibility and understandability of the text."
Daniel Barenboim in The Guardian

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau at Bayreuth

1954

Tannhäuser (Wolfram von Eschenbach)
Lohengrin (Der Heerrufer)

1955

Tannhäuser (Wolfram von Eschenbach)
Parsifal (Amfortas)

1956

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (Fritz Kothner)
Parsifal (Amfortas)

1961

Tannhäuser (Wolfram von Eschenbach)

Fischer-Dieskau is one of the few singers who take an active interest in contemporary music. His fastidiousness and meticulous preparation were astonishing in the performances of Stravinsky's Abraham and Isaac (in perfect Hebrew!) and in works by Lutoslawski and Aribert Reimann, which I was fortunate enough to perform with him. I also remember doing a recording with him of Il matrimonio segreto by Cimarosa, and it was fascinating to see how he managed, with his mixture of intuition and German thoroughness, to capture the comic aspects of the character as well as the Italian language.
Daniel Barenboim in his autobiography A Life in Music

Selected Biographies

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One of the finest monuments in sound ever to have been raised to the everlasting glory of music. (Claude Debussy on Parsifal)

"The thing about Wagner is that there can be no true success in any production of his operas, only degrees of failure. There is so much in these bloody pieces, all you can do is try to live up to them." (Keith Warner, The Guardian)

"I have never come across an audience with so much hatred, so much anger, such a thirst for revenge. They take everything personally. It makes you a little bit scared, and it's really quite terrifying." (Lance Ryan on the audiences at Bayreuth)

"People sometimes complain that Wagner operas are too long, that they get stiff and sore about 10.30 because they have rushed in to hear one of his works straight from work and are not properly prepared for listening to his music. The audience, as much as the artists, must be prepared for a performance."
(Benjamin Britten to Alan Blyth, Gramophone)

"I was bowled over. It was the year after Wieland Wagner had died; to be able to see his productions was a total knock-out. These bare stagings, where everything was done with lighting. The light changed with the music, and the shadows and patterns seemed as archetypal as the music itself. Nobody had done that on the stage before. I thought it was extraordinary and wonderful."
(Patrick Carnegy to The Guardian)

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