Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau

[kishnevi]

I also feel that he was basically unsuited to Italian Opera, the best I know of is his Posa in Don Carlos, but more usually, it somehow sounds alien, for example his Macbeth. Simply not at all an Italianate sound or idiomatic relish for the language.

BTW: a page or so back there was mention of a Mahler Wunderhorn recording. That was with Schwartzkopf and Szell and I think it is excellent. If it is thought that he adopts a hectoring approach here and there, then compare with the partner to Janet Baker on the Wyn Morris version, Geraint Evans, who barks gruffly through several songs and makes DFD sound silken by comparison.

In fact, he recorded the complete Wunderhorn cycle, without a female partner, twice--both time, I believe, with Barenboim, once as pianist and the other time conducting the BPO.   I have the orchestral version, which was coupled with the Wayfarer songs.

As to DFD singing Posa, the liner notes to my copy of the Fricsay recording of the Magic Flute (in which DFD sang Papageno) contain an extensive passage from DFD's memoirs.   Per the liner notes, Posa was his stage debut (Berlin, 1948).  Fricsay coached him extensively on the acting side of the role as well the musical side.  Maybe that's why he was better in that role than in others.

[knight66]

Thanks for the background info...someone further back suggested Baker as his partner in the Wunderhorn songs. I have never heard his solo efforts in those songs. I assume there were one or two he did not record?

There are more of the songs than are in the usual collection. I have heard recitals that leave some out and substitute others. I think I have a Baker disc of early Mahler song settings that gave me a few pieces I have not heard before.

Mike

[kishnevi]

Thanks for the background info...someone further back suggested Baker as his partner in the Wunderhorn songs. I have never heard his solo efforts in those songs. I assume there were one or two he did not record?

There are more of the songs than are in the usual collection. I have heard recitals that leave some out and substitute others. I think I have a Baker disc of early Mahler song settings that gave me a few pieces I have not heard before.

Mike

That was me, I think.  If you look, I 'fessed up to getting my memory screwed up.  The actual recording turned out to be a Berry-Ludwig-Bernstein (piano) recording.

The orchestral DFD/Barenboim cycle contains the same twelve songs that are on the Szell cycle with Schwarzkopf.  There are some Wunderhorn songs that Mahler did not orchestrate but simply left in the piano versions (not sure how many there are of those); I don't know if DFD recorded those in his piano cycle.
Plus there are the non-Wunderhorn songs ("Songs from Youth" and another set I don't remember the title of) he did early on.   Gerharer's recent CD includes some of these,  I think, as well as some of the Wunderhorn piano songs, the Wayfarer songs in their piano version, and the Ruckert Lieder in their piano versions (and ends with Urlicht for baritone and piano)--but the liner notes are somewhat confusing as to which were actually Wunderhorn songs and which were not.

[knight66]

Yes, I got similarily confuses as to which songs come from the Wunderhorn collection. Thanks for the information.

Mike

[Mandryka]

I must be going blind, but I just can't see the passage you translated (I can see a discussion of Panzéra in the interview "Les Fantômes de l'Opéra")

I'm going to go crazy if I don't find it – which page is it on?

Ah -- I see. The essay "Le Grain de la Voix" is not part of the book Le Grain de la Voix (Seuil 1981) . Rather it is part of the collection L'Obvie et l'obtus (Seuil 1992)

OMG! This is like being an undergraduate again.

[ccar]

Ah -- I see. The essay "Le Grain de la Voix" is not part of the book Le Grain de la Voix (Seuil 1981) . Rather it is part of the collection L'Obvie et l'obtus (Seuil 1992)

OMG! This is like being an undergraduate again.

Sorry I missed your question before.

As you already noticed the essay it is not in the book with the same title.
The original essay "le grain de la voix" was published in November 1972 in a french musical journal "Musique en jeu" and now it can only be found reprinted in Roland Barthes's anthologies or collections. Mine is in the "Oeuvres Completes - tome II - pp 1436-42 - Seuil 1994".
Unfortunately I don't Know of any english translation.       

[zamyrabyrd]

       
In this more global sense I very much agree with the ideas brilliantly expressed in the famous essay of Roland Barthes "Le grain de la voix" (Seuil 1972). For me it is one of the most penetrating analyses on singing and interpretation.  RB stresses the importance of the "grain" as one of the most interesting and distinctive elements of the voice, of the singing character and even of all musical or artistic interpretation. Barthes's "grain" is not only the color of the voice but the peculiar way each singer translates his inner self through the "mixing" of the music with the word. Barthes uses DFD "interpretation style" as a model and he compares it to Charles Panzéra, as two contrasting examples.

To illustrate what I also feel is my "sensibility objection" to DFD's singing "style", I will use some illustrating excerpts from RB's "Le grain de la voix" (please forgive me for my poor English translation). 

"... The 'grain' of the voice is not, or not only, the timbre. It means the friction between the music and the other element – the language (not the meaning). ... The 'grain' is the body's individual expression through the singing voice. ... Some artists have a 'grain' that others, however famous, may have not.

... As a singer FD is an absolutely faultless artist. Everything in the structure (semantic and lyrical) is respected. However nothing seduces us, nothing carries us to the delight. It is like an over-expressive art – the wording is dramatic and his breathing stops, oppressions and releases act like passion earthquakes. ... With FD I believe I only listen to his lungs, never his tongue, the glottis, the teeth, the mouth or the nose. On the contrary, all the art of Panzéra is in the letters and not in the breath – we listen to his phrasing and not to his breathing. ...

... FD is an almost absolute King of the record of singing. He recorded everything. If you love Schubert and you don't love FD, Schubert is forbidden to you – an example of the positive censorship that without any criticism whatsoever has dominated the mass culture. Perhaps his art – expressive, dramatic, emotionally transparent, carried by a voice without 'grain', without significant weight, responds well to the needs of the "culture moyenne"; a culture brought by the generalization of listeners and the disappearance of the 'amateur' performers. ... "

When I first read here about the "grain of the voice" I was not sure what was meant.  In fact, I am still a bit confused, so to dispel that somewhat went to the dictionary to get a good translation of "grain". If this means what the Italians regard as the core of the sound, or the center, I think it is a bit unfair to say that FD doesn't have one.  It's like saying a 'person without a shadow'.

He had plenty of weight to his voice in his earlier career as seen in "Der Erlkönig", even though his voice is of the more lyrical variety.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e40Mm8baD7A

I don't agree at all his art (re: the above example) is "over expressive". How does this contradiction in terms "fail to move"?

Describing singing is at times like walking in quicksand, the more metaphors one uses, the deeper in mud one sinks.

ZB

[Mandryka]

He had plenty of weight to his voice in his earlier career as seen in "Der Erlkönig", even though his voice is of the more lyrical variety.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e40Mm8baD7A

He's very good in dramatic Schubert -- does anyone here want to say that he does a pretty good Erlkönig -- funny voices and all?

The problem is in the less melodramatic songs -- my example was Nacht und Traeume.

I just listened to a whole pile of "Der Wegweiser" recordings: FD in Prades and Huesch (1933), Hotter/Moore, Schreier/Richter. I really didn't enjoy FD-- over the top, even ugly. Even Huesch (who is also quite dramatic) was more pleasing -- more authentic.

When I first read here about the "grain of the voice" I was not sure what was meant.  In fact, I am still a bit confused, so to dispel that somewhat went to the dictionary to get a good translation of "grain". If this means what the Italians regard as the core of the sound, or the center, I think it is a bit unfair to say that FD doesn't have one.  It's like saying a 'person without a shadow'.

Or like saying a person without soul maybe.

I have read the essay now --grain is a  complex idea  and Barthes does try to spell it out. There is quite an extended contrast between FD and Panzéra – à propos the way they express consonants and  the way they control the breath.

[zamyrabyrd]

I just listened to Panzéra in Erlkönig.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mc3nGKksrzA&feature=related

Yes, there is a vulnerability and focus that FD doesn't seem to have in abundance. Maybe it's really the spectrum of natural overtones in the voice that can't be changed, or grain...whatever...je ne sais quoi... 

The following L'Invitation Au Voyage  is incroyable and pianist is excellent, too...seems like his wife...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78sK4f86_8M&feature=related

ZB

[zamyrabyrd]

I also feel that he was basically unsuited to Italian Opera, the best I know of is his Posa in Don Carlos, but more usually, it somehow sounds alien, for example his Macbeth. Simply not at all an Italianate sound or idiomatic relish for the language.

On the subject of FD and Italian opera, there was a rather long film recently on Mezzo TV about his life that showed him in his early days after the war singing such roles in German, fairly common back then anyway. As an example of his later teaching career, he was coaching Varady, his wife, in the rather heavy aria "Morro, ma prima in grazia" from Ballo. She was not up to it at all, a lightweight voice anyway, and he was out of it as well.

Now, try this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_6KPYEFe7k&feature=PlayList&p=9983DAB86E655237&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=36
A highly dramatic song by Wolf.....masterful or overdone? What do folk think.

Mike

Scary, I'd say, more sprech than gesang. Also I would have liked to hear more piano that carries a lot of expression here.

ZB

[mjwal]

Well, it is scary - uncanny - unheimlich, and he does get every ounce of suggestion out of Mörike's magnificently eery verses. There is a version with Richter where the piano part is more effective. If you want a better sung "Feuerreiter" you must listen to the old Helge Roswaenge version, a vocal classic among Wolf recordings.

[Mandryka]

The following L'Invitation Au Voyage  is incroyable and pianist is excellent, too...seems like his wife...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78sK4f86_8M&feature=related

ZB

Indeed.

[nesf]

My wife wants more Dietrich Ficher-Dieskau, any advice on decent collections of his work?

[mc ukrneal]

My wife wants more Dietrich Ficher-Dieskau, any advice on decent collections of his work?

What do you already have? Are you looking for a collection of songs? Arias? Opera? This one came out not too long ago - an 11 CD set from EMI. It's on my wishlist, but I have other priorities. Still, not a bad price for what you get. Here are the contents: http://www.europadisc.co.uk/classical/85461/Dietrich_Fischer-Dieskau:_The_Great_EMI_Recordings.htm.
[asin]B00369K29Q[/asin]

If you are looking for something different, there are numerous collections, so let us know. DG have a number of choices too, including this (Schubert only, see track listing in first Amazon review):
[asin]B003CF0XDE[/asin]

[nesf]

What do you already have? Are you looking for a collection of songs? Arias? Opera? This one came out not too long ago - an 11 CD set from EMI. It's on my wishlist, but I have other priorities. Still, not a bad price for what you get. Here are the contents: http://www.europadisc.co.uk/classical/85461/Dietrich_Fischer-Dieskau:_The_Great_EMI_Recordings.htm.
[asin]B00369K29Q[/asin]

If you are looking for something different, there are numerous collections, so let us know. DG have a number of choices too, including this (Schubert only, see track listing in first Amazon review):
[asin]B003CF0XDE[/asin]

I have a "Best of" 2 CD set from EMI with some Schubert, Brahms and Bach on it. I was looking at that 11CD EMI set alright as a possibility. I was curious if there was better out there. Sorry, I should have had more details in my question, just still sedated after last night's sedative (I don't take them very often for this reason).

Edit: My wife likes the Lieder but would not be opposed to some Opera mixed in. So that EMI set looks good.

[Sadko]

I have a "Best of" 2 CD set from EMI with some Schubert, Brahms and Bach on it. I was looking at that 11CD EMI set alright as a possibility. I was curious if there was better out there. Sorry, I should have had more details in my question, just still sedated after last night's sedative (I don't take them very often for this reason).

The set with 3 Schubert song  cycles IMO is a very good start, people who like FiDi (like me) mostly speak highly of these recordings (like me).

I would not recommend his recording of the complete Schubert songs, although executed on a good level it gets quite boring after a while.

I don't know much about collections, since my FiDi acquisitions mainly date from older times, but in opera I can recommend e. g. his Rigoletto under Kubelik, a very nice recording.

If you are more hard-core you can also try his Schwanengesang with Brendel, musically it is awesome, but the voice is far beyond its prime ...

If you are interested in more I can have a closer look at my collection.

[DavidW]

If you are looking for something different, there are numerous collections, so let us know. DG have a number of choices too, including this (Schubert only, see track listing in first Amazon review):
[asin]B003CF0XDE[/asin]

The singing on here is consistently superb but it's ALOT of music from one composer.

[nesf]

The set with 3 Schubert song  cycles IMO is a very good start, people who like FiDi (like me) mostly speak highly of these recordings (like me).

I would not recommend his recording of the complete Schubert songs, although executed on a good level it gets quite boring after a while.

I don't know much about collections, since my FiDi acquisitions mainly date from older times, but in opera I can recommend e. g. his Rigoletto under Kubelik, a very nice recording.

If you are more hard-core you can also try his Schwanengesang with Brendel, musically it is awesome, but the voice is far beyond its prime ...

If you are interested in more I can have a closer look at my collection.

Yes, what I'm interested in is which recordings catch him in his prime versus those he did later where his voice wouldn't have been as good (though, still I imagine excellent). I'm completely new to this so I've no idea where to start looking and which label he had during his better years etc.

[Sadko]

Yes, what I'm interested in is which recordings catch him in his prime versus those he did later where his voice wouldn't have been as good (though, still I imagine excellent). I'm completely new to this so I've no idea where to start looking and which label he had during his better years etc.

Deutsche Grammophon was his label in the prime period.

I have to leave now, will look into it later (if you are not flooded with other recommendations by then )

[mc ukrneal]

Deutsche Grammophon was his label in the prime period.

The EMI set covers the '50's to the 70's, so I don't think one is necessarily worse than the other on that account.

The 3fer you mentioned earlier is good, and can understand one not wanting the whole 21 Schubert set (although I find the songs so good, that I bet it doesn't become that tiresome). Alternatively, there is the Hyperion Schubert box of complete songs that I think is heavenly (well thought out programs, a mix of singers, many different singers, etc). I think the EMI box is good in that you can always go more complete later, but you get a lot of good stuff now.

DFD released numerous single discs or sets as well, so one can always go that way. His Mahler Das Lied von der Erde with Bernstein is quite good (if you don't mind the orchestra). Brilliant had released a set of his Brhams Lieder that are excellent, but that seems to be OOP. I enjoy his Deutsche Volkslieder (Brahms) with Schwarzkopf immensely.