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Started by DavidW, July 14, 2009, 08:39:17 AM

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Brian

Random, but as a person who does not know the answer, why is Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau so controversial?

Mahlerian

Quote from: Brian on August 31, 2018, 03:43:58 PM
Random, but as a person who does not know the answer, why is Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau so controversial?

He has a very distinctive voice and a delivery that some experience as impassioned, others as mannered and hammy.
"l do not consider my music as atonal, but rather as non-tonal. I feel the unity of all keys. Atonal music by modern composers admits of no key at all, no feeling of any definite center." - Arnold Schoenberg

Ghost of Baron Scarpia

I'm in the mannered and hammy camp. More like bologna than ham, really.

JBS

Quote from: Brian on August 31, 2018, 03:43:58 PM
Random, but as a person who does not know the answer, why is Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau so controversial?

Also because he recorded such a wide swathe of music, leading to the idea that he was a Hans of all lieder but Meister of none.

Hollywood Beach Broadwalk

Brian

Quote from: JBS on August 31, 2018, 04:09:11 PM
Also because he recorded such a wide swathe of music, leading to the idea that he was a Hans of all lieder but Meister of none.
Excellent analogy!

So from these comments, I presume he couldn't help having an unusual voice, but his, uh, extremely emotionally invested interpretation is divisive? Does he also get criticized for treating all genres/composers similarly?

SurprisedByBeauty

#2325
Quote from: Brian on August 31, 2018, 03:43:58 PM
Random, but as a person who does not know the answer, why is Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau so controversial?

Controversial as what? A singer? Probably not. An opera singer? Because he was not considered to have a natural dramatic/acting talent... a certain stiff intellectualism that didn't necessarily go well with the roles he sung.

As a Lieder-singer, he's still, rightly uncontroversial -- although the universal adoration has worn off a little; he phoned a number of Schubert songs in... and there was a phase in his life where he was more mannered than necessary (but never as bad as Schwarzkopf!) and there have been singers, since, who have surpassed his achievements. None of those, however, could or would have done what they do had it not been for him.

Wish to read more on him? Here's my (reasonably short) portrait of him:

Portrait of a Baritone - An Appraisal of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau


SurprisedByBeauty

#2326

SurprisedByBeauty

So I get this e-mail, earlier this week:


/Dear Mr. Laurson; read your review of our CD with interest; happy that you liked it.
I would, however, aks you to remove the part about my headgear, as it is irrelevant
to the topic of the review and a personal matter. Thanks in advance and best regards...


...making me instantly regret that I reviewed the CD in the first place... assuring also that I'll never review that group again... and being once again re-assured that either 1.) they have a 'free press understanding deficiency in Austria [where the left is just as fascist as the right] or 2.) classical music journalism simply isn't taken for full but as a service industry, instead.

Roasted Swan

so what was the headgear that deserved comment and demanded removal!?

knight66

Quote from: Brian on August 31, 2018, 05:04:50 PM
Excellent analogy!

So from these comments, I presume he couldn't help having an unusual voice, but his, uh, extremely emotionally invested interpretation is divisive? Does he also get criticized for treating all genres/composers similarly?

When young his voice was very beautiful and he made a number of his best recordings. There is some very fine Bach and Schubert, also superb Mahler orchestral songs, Haydn Creation. I have read that he smoked heavily and perhaps that partly caused the dryness of the tone in later years. He could bark a bit and break lines up. But he remained a considerable singer and was influential.

In opera he seemed not to be suited to the 19th century Italian repertoire, though he recorded quite a bit of it. In German language operas as a baritone he took on the likes of Rheingold Wotan and Hans Sachs, Dutchman. In each he is admired for his approach, though the voice was not heavy enough for these parts.

In later years he took up conducting. He recorded some terrific recitals with his then wife Julia Varady, those are well worth exploring for her voice and his very good support. He also taught. His last pupil, Benjamin Appl, is making a big splash in the concert platform repertoire.

Lastly, I have read that whilst much admired, his recordings are eagerly bought then sit unloved on shelves. There may be something to that, though there are a number of his discs I both admire and thoroughly enjoy.

Mike
DavidW: Yeah Mike doesn't get angry, he gets even.
I wasted time: and time wasted me.

SurprisedByBeauty

#2330
Quote from: Roasted Swan on September 14, 2018, 11:15:01 AM
so what was the headgear that deserved comment and demanded removal!?

The skullcap of a violinist that features prominently on all the instrumentalist's publicity shots. Bit of a throw-away comment, granted (like the throwaway jokes in a Sunday cartoon), but certainly not meriting removal. The temerity, too.

Meanwhile a distraction from this distraction:

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The Reference: The Takács Quartet's Beethoven Cycle

At the Freer Gallery, or at the Corcoran Gallery (when it was still a chamber music oasis in Washington, DC), or at the more humble Landon School Mondzac Performing Arts Center, the Takács Quartet made my life better with their performances of Bartók, Beethoven, Haydn,... Continue Reading
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Brian

From CPO's liner notes to the new recording of Johann Strauss Jr.'s unfinished ballet "Cinderella":

"The commission quickly decided in favour of 'Cinderella', a topic that left Strauss unconvinced. True, the material was realistic, but it was hardly new: Berlin had mounted a ballet on the Cinderella theme by G. A. Schneider in 1821; a work by W. Mühldörfer featured in the Leipzig repertoire in 1870; and a version choreographed by the incomparable Marius Petipa had been running in St Petersburg since 1893. Not to mention the operas by Rossini, Prokofiev and Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari based on the same material."

Yes, I'm sure Johann Strauss was mightily intimidated by the Prokofiev "opera" which was definitely written before 1898!!!

North Star

Quote from: Brian on September 17, 2018, 12:15:36 PM
From CPO's liner notes to the new recording of Johann Strauss Jr.'s unfinished ballet "Cinderella":

"The commission quickly decided in favour of 'Cinderella', a topic that left Strauss unconvinced. True, the material was realistic, but it was hardly new: Berlin had mounted a ballet on the Cinderella theme by G. A. Schneider in 1821; a work by W. Mühldörfer featured in the Leipzig repertoire in 1870; and a version choreographed by the incomparable Marius Petipa had been running in St Petersburg since 1893. Not to mention the operas by Rossini, Prokofiev and Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari based on the same material."

Yes, I'm sure Johann Strauss was mightily intimidated by the Prokofiev "opera" which was definitely written before 1898!!!
And the Wolf-Ferrari was premiered in 1900.
"Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it." - Confucius

My photographs on Flickr

SurprisedByBeauty



SurprisedByBeauty


SurprisedByBeauty

I'm sort-of proud of these. They take quite a while... and it's a hurdle to overcome starting them. But when I am finished, I'm sort of self-satisfiedly pleased, I must admit.


Just finished one of my labor-of-love discographies:

A Survey of Shostakovich String Quartet Cycles



http://ionarts.blogspot.com/2018/10/a-survey-of-shostakovich-string-quartet.html

SurprisedByBeauty


SurprisedByBeauty

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