Search - Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Franz [Vienna] Schubert, Gerald Moore :: Legend: Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau [CD & DVD]

An essential item in F-D's huge catalog

Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 01/08/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I know of two versions of Schwanengesang from Fischer-Dieskau in stereo, this one from the early Sixties and a later one (I think) on DG, both with Gerald Moore. There's also an early mono version with Moore on EMI that's rather immature and overly sweet---not a complaint one associates with this singer. Here he's at his very best, finding many shades of meaning in each song and varying the mood from light-hearted to tragic. Some of Schubert's most technically difficult writing is contained in these posthumous lieder, and F-D was perfectly equipped to handle them--he assails Der Atlas without barking or trying to fake a heaavier timbre.



I have listened to every major lieder singer for forty years, and for me the masters of Schwanengesang on CD are Thomas Quasthoff and Bryn Terfel. Fischer-Dieskau yields nothing to them for technique and verbal mastery, but he lacks the psychological honesty and vulnerability of those two baritones. Having said that, this is one of his essential recordings."