111300 bk Dieskau EU 13/7/08 22:45 Page 5 Great Singers • Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau GUSTAV MAHLER (1860-1911): ROBERT SCHUMANN (1810-1856): Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen 18:17 Liederkreis, Op. 39 26:31 MAHLER (Songs of a Wayfarer) (Text: Gustav Mahler) (Song Cycle) (Text: Joseph von Eichendorff) Also available 1 I. Wenn mein Schatz Hochzeit macht 4:18 0 No. 1. In der Fremde 2:15 Kindertotenlieder • Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen 2 II. Ging heut’ morgen übers Feld 4:46 ! No. 2. Intermezzo 1:52 3 III. Ich hab’ ein glühend Messer 3:30 @ No. 3. Waldesgespräch 2:10 SCHUMANN: Liederkreis 4 IV. Die zwei blauen Augen 5:42 # No. 4. Die Stille 1:32 $ No. 5. Mondnacht 3:48 ISCHER Philharmonia Orchestra % No. 6. Schöne Fremde 1:26 H F -D Wilhelm Furtwängler ^ No. 7. Auf einer Burg 3:14 IC IE R S Recorded 24th-25th June,1952 & No. 8. In der Fremde 1:33 T K * E A in Kingsway Hall, London No. 9. Wehmut 2:30 I U First issued on HMV ALP 1270 ( No. 10. Zwielicht 3:20 D ) No. 11. Im Walde 1:29 Kindertotenlieder 24:31 ¡ No. 12. Frühlingsnacht 1:19 (Songs on the Death of Children) (Text: Friedrich Rückert) 5 I. Nun will die Sonn’ so hell aufgeh’n 5:20 Gerald Moore, piano 6 II. Nun seh’ ich wohl, warum so dunkle Flammen 4:50 Recorded 10th March, 1954 8.111056-58 8.111254 7 III. Wenn dein Mütterlein 4:33 in EMI Abbey Road Studio 3, London 8 IV. Oft denk’ ich, sie sind nur ausgegangen 3:05 First issued on HMV BLP 1068 9 V. In diesem Wetter, in diesem Braus 6:43 Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra Rudolf Kempe 1 s 952 ing Recorded 20th-21st June, 1955 -1955 Record in Jesus-Christus-Kirche, Berlin First issued on Electrola WBLP 1511 Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau Reissue Producer and Audio Restoration Engineer: Mark Obert-Thorn Philharmonia Orchestra • Wilhelm Furtwängler 8.111264 8.111287 Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra • Rudolf Kempe Gerald Moore, piano 8.111300 5 8.111300 6 111300 bk Dieskau EU 13/7/08 22:45 Page 2 Great Singers • Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau Parsifal. His American début took place in April 1955 with An English composer with whom Fischer-Dieskau following the break-up of his love affair with the actress the fourth an impression the children have just wandered two concerts in Cincinatti, followed by further appearances worked and was associated was Benjamin Britten (1913- Johanna Richter. The songs are concerned with youth and off into another world and that they will be reunited shortly. MAHLER (1860-1911): Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen • Kindertotenlieder in Minnesota and New York, both accompanied by Gerald 1976). When the composer wrote his choral War Requiem in the main part folk-derived with the journey being The final song depicts a raging storm and the appalling Moore. In fact it was through the concert hall and for the dedication of the new Coventry Cathedral he had the undertaken in the springtime. The orchestra employed by realisation that the parents should never have let the SCHUMANN (1810-1856): Liederkreis, Op. 39 recordings that Fischer-Dieskau’s American reputation was voice of the German baritone in mind. The first Mahler is large for this his first major composition. The first children out of the house, before tranquillity pervades. “The depth of insight and the strength of personality behind eighteen, serving in Italy before becoming a prisoner of war achieved as he never sang on the operatic stage on that performance in June 1962 created a profound and marked song is a contrast between the scorned lover’s grief and his Schumann wrote his twelve songs by Joseph it have made him not merely a singer much heard in public, of the American forces in May 1945. Returning to continent. The baritone became a regular visitor to Britain effect and the following year they cemented that obvious delight in the joy of nature. The second depicts the Eichendorff (1788-1857) during May 1840. The concept of but also one who influences the course of singing and the Germany two years later he worked with Hermann either for recording purposes but also in the concert hall. He relationship with a now famous recording. Three years later young lover setting out on a bright clear morning, happy a cycle was his original intention but the more he composed practice of his own contemporaries”. Thus commented Weissenborn and made his concert début in a performance made his operatic début as a memorable Mandryka in Britten composed his Songs and Proverbs of William Blake with the view of nature around him, only for him to become the more the idea began to grow in his mind. The opening John Steane in his indispensable book of singing and of Brahms’s German Requiem in Badenweiler in 1947 as a Arabella at Covent Garden in 1965 and as Falstaff in for the German baritone who gave the première at the 1965 downcast and sad. The third, a fiery, impassioned and song, In der Fremde (Far from home), conveys the idea of singers entitled The Grand Tradition (Duckworth, 1974) very late replacement and without rehearsal, to be followed Verdi’s opera two years later. He appeared at the Edinburgh Aldeburgh Festival. crazily demonic setting, depicts the ‘red-hot-knife thrust hope though it is seen through death. The ensuing brief when writing about the German baritone Dietrich Fischer- by a successful recital in Leipzig later that year. The Festival in August 1952, first toured Japan in 1963 and In 1983 Fischer-Dieskau was appointed Professor of into his beloved’s breast’. The finale is the young lover’s Intermezzo is in essence a suppressed yearning to love Dieskau. This singer follows in the vocal tradition of turning-point in his career came in a new production by enjoyed a most successful tour of Israel in 1971. He Voice at the Berlin Hochschule für Kunste and eventually final journey (here the composer introduces a mock funeral while the next, Waldesgesprach (Overheard in the woods), Heinrich Schlusnus, Friedrich Schorr and Herbert Janssen, Heinz Tietjen of Verdi’s Don Carlos when he sang Posa at undertook his first conducting assignment with the New retired from the concert hall in 1992 to spend the next few march idiom) before concluding in a sad folk-inspired vein is an imaginary conversation between two disparate people. in addition to contemporaries such as Hermann Prey and the Städtische Oper in Berlin under Fricsay to marked Philharmonia Orchestra in London two years later. He years teaching, conducting and painting. His first wife was Following the death of Furtwängler in November 1954 The fourth song is another of imagined and inward feeling Eberhard Waechter. But there is always something ‘special’ acclaim. He would appear at this house for over 35 years. would later conduct for his wife, the soprano Júlia Várady. the cellist Irmgard Poppen, whom he married in 1949, but EMI were keen to find a young, upcoming conductor who of love but the next, Mondnacht (Moonlight), one of about Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau whether it be an awareness The year 1949 saw Fischer-Dieskau singing at the On the operatic stage Fischer-Dieskau embraced who died tragically young in 1963 following problems might prove a long-term replacement. They decided on Schumann’s most memorable songs, is the intertwining of of the text, an inflection or the sheer musical quality which Vienna State Opera as well as in the Bavarian State Opera mainly German and Italian rôles: these included Don when giving birth. Then followed unsuccessful marriages Rudolf Kempe (1912-1976) and in his first batch of music and words. This is followed by the impression of a makes his singing stand out. Of course the range of what he in Munich. His reputation soon spread to Britain where Giovanni, Don Alfonso, Almaviva in Figaro, Barak in Die to the actress Ruth Leuwerik (1965-67) and Christina recordings in 1955 with the Berlin Philharmonic it was night breeze stirring among the leaves to convey a mood of sang was enormous, covering the periods of baroque, Beecham engaged him for the demanding baritone part in Frau ohne Schatten, Jochanaan in Salome, Olivier and the Ougel-Schule (1968-75). In 1977 he married the Hungarian decided to include Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder with gentle happiness. A change of mood occurs in the evocation classical, romantic, modern and contemporary as well as Delius’s Eine Messe des Lebens in London in June 1951, an Count in Capriccio, Doktor Faust, Mathis der Maler, soprano Júlia Várady. His three sons from his first marriage Fischer-Dieskau. The resultant performance was widely of an old castle with a knight asleep in his watch-tower in a the number of languages he mastered for the recital room, occasion which proved memorable in every sense. The Wozzeck, Renato in Un ballo in maschera, and, finally in are Mathias (a stage designer), Martin (a conductor) and praised when first released. mood of stillness and tranquillity: a wedding party sails by the opera house or the recording studio. Little wonder young singer soon made his first recordings in London with 1976, Hans Sachs. He also created the rôles of Gregor Manuel (a cellist). Kindertotenlieder (Songs on the death of children) are far below in the valley. The eighth song, also entitled In der therefore that his importance over the second half of the the pianist Gerald Moore, a partnership which would Mittenhofer in Henze’s Elegy for Young Lovers (May Fischer-Dieskau’s first major operatic recording was as settings of poems by Friedrich Rückert, three being Fremde conveys the impression of vague sounds of the twentieth century was so important and significant.