22 Facts About Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau was a German lyric baritone and conductor of classical music, one of the most famous Lieder performers of the post-war period, best known as a singer of Franz Schubert's Lieder, particularly "Winterreise" of which his recordings with accompanists Gerald Moore and Jorg Demus are still critically acclaimed half a century after their release.

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau was described as "one of the supreme vocal artists of the 20th century" and "the most influential singer of the 20th Century".

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau dominated both the opera and concert platforms for over thirty years.

Albert Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau Fischer was born in 1925 in Berlin to Albert Fischer, a school principal, and Theodora Fischer, a teacher.

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau started singing as a child and began formal voice lessons at the age of 16.

When he was drafted into the Wehrmacht during World War II in 1943, tending horses on the Russian Front, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau had just completed his secondary school studies and one semester at the Berlin Conservatory.

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau was captured in Italy in 1945 and spent two years as an American prisoner of war.

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau had a physically and intellectually impaired brother, Martin, who was sent to an institution by the Nazi regime and starved to death.

In 1947, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau returned to Germany, where he launched his professional career as a singer in Badenweiler, singing in Brahms's Ein Deutsches Requiem without any rehearsal.

Subsequently, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau made guest appearances at the opera houses in Vienna and Munich.

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau made regular opera appearances at the Bayreuth Festival between 1954 and 1961 and at the Salzburg Festival from 1956 until the early 1970s.

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau made guest appearances at the Vienna State Opera, at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in London, at the Hamburg State Opera, in Japan, and at the King's Theatre in Edinburgh, during the Edinburgh Festival.

In 1951, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau made his first of many recordings of Lieder with Gerald Moore at the EMI Abbey Road Studios, London, including a complete Die schone Mullerin, and they performed the work on 31 January 1952 at the Kingsway Hall, London in the Mysore Concerts of the Philharmonia Concert Society.

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau participated in the 1975 premiere and 1993 recording of Gottfried von Einem's cantata An die Nachgeborenen, written in 1973 as a commission of the UN, both with Julia Hamari and the Wiener Symphoniker conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini.

Beyond his recordings of Lieder and the German opera repertoire, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau recorded performances in the Italian operatic field.

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau retired from opera in 1978, the year he recorded his final opera, Aribert Reimann's Lear, which the composer had written at his suggestion.

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau retired from the concert hall as of New Year's Day, 1993, at 67, and dedicated himself to conducting, teaching, painting and writing books.

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau still performed as a reciter, reading for example the letters of Strauss to Hugo von Hofmannsthal, for the Rheingau Musik Festival in 1994; and both performing and recording Strauss's melodrama Enoch Arden.

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau became an honorary member of the Robert Schumann Society.

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau's older brother Klaus Fischer-Dieskau was a notable Berlin choral director who conducted for Fischer-Dieskau several times, including in his only recording of a passion by Heinrich Schutz in 1961.

On 18 May 2012, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau died in his sleep at his home in Berg, Upper Bavaria, 10 days before his 87th birthday.

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau recorded mainly for the EMI, Deutsche Grammophon and Orfeo labels.