Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau

There has never been a greater or more influential master of the art song (and especially its German form, the Lied) than Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. His elegant baritone was a model of refinement, minutely responsive to text and so skilled at telling stories through music that he could turn three minutes of Schubert into a miniature opera. But then, he was also an opera singer of distinction, celebrated for the agile intelligence he brought to Mozart, Strauss and Wagner roles across a 31-year career. Born in 1925, he grew up in wartime Berlin, and as a 17-year-old he sang his first Winterreise—Schubert’s harrowing song cycle about a winter journey—in a suburb of that city, in a performance interrupted by RAF bombers. Such experiences left their mark and fed into the peculiar poignancy he brought to the Lieder repertoire—which he recorded with an encyclopaedic thoroughness. Nearly every song of Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Strauss, Wolf and Mendelssohn was committed to disc at least once (in the case of Winterreise, eight times!). And they contributed to a vast discography including many of his stage roles: the Count in Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Kurwenal in the legendary 1952 Furtwängler recording of Tristan. Intellectual curiosity drew him into partnership with contemporary composers like Britten, who wrote War Requiem’s baritone solos for him to premiere in 1962 (a telling gesture given Fischer-Dieskau’s past). And such new works sat alongside the Bach Passions as an interest he maintained until his retirement on New Year's Day, 1993. He died, aged 86, in 2012.