A voice for the ages

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau's consummate artistry enthralled all who heard him sing. Andrew Green marks 100 years of the celebrated German baritone

- Andrew Green

The ability of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau to excite youthful minds is an intriguing measure of his unique talents. Daniel Barenboim was 'completely mesmerised' at age ten by a Fischer-Dieskau recital. The distinguished British tenors Ian Partridge and Ian Bostridge both had their moments of revelation while at school. 'The quality of his voice was something I'd never heard before, the warmth, the immediacy,' Partridge recalls of a Mahler recording. One Schubert track did it for Ian Bostridge: Erlkönig: 'It was the intensity and authority, the beauty of the voice.'

As a student in London in the 1960s, the soprano Teresa Cahill attended 'all Fischer-Dieskau's song recitals with [pianist] Gerald Moore. I had a respect and reverence for him that bordered on hero-worship.' Cahill would go on to work with Fischer-Dieskau twice. “Those performances will stay in my memory forever. To have known him personally and performed with him represents the pinnacle of my career.'

The teenage Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau was himself a discophile, one element of an unquenchable thirst for classical music (as well as for art, theatre, poetry and books). His schoolteacher father, Albert Fischer-Dieskau, was a devoted musician, composer and sometime concert promoter. Dietrich's mother, Dora, was likewise in love with music, which adorned the family's life in Berlin. Fischer-Dieskau remembered his excitement at hearing Wagner's opera Lohengrin on the radio at age four. Piano studies rendered him a far more than competent player. The overarching bonus was the rich musical life of 1930s Berlin. All of this made Fischer-Dieskau the intensely musically aware individual he ever remained.

'The warmth and immediacy of his voice was something I had never heard before'