Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau was born in Berlin in May 1925, the son of a school director and classical philologist. He studied singing with Hermann Weissenborn at the Berlin Conservatory after his return from American prisoner-of-war detention in 1947, and made his début at the Berlin Städtische Oper in 1948 as Verdi’s Posa in *Don Carlo*. His Berlin career and his Salzburg Festival début in 1951 under Wilhelm Furtwängler quickly established him as the leading lyric baritone of post-war Germany.

His career across the next four decades reshaped the lieder repertoire. The complete Schubert songs (over 600), the complete Schumann songs, the Brahms, Wolf and Mahler cycles, and a substantial body of contemporary repertoire — Henze, Britten, Reimann (whose *Lear* was composed for him), Lutosławski — formed the studio recorded output that defined twentieth-century baritone singing for two generations. His long partnership with the pianist Gerald Moore, and later with Daniel Barenboim, Wolfgang Sawallisch and Sviatoslav Richter, became the reference partnership for the German art song. His operatic work was substantial but secondary — Mozart’s Count, Verdi’s Posa, Wagner’s Wolfram and Amfortas, the title role in *Wozzeck*, Britten’s *War Requiem* (a role written for him).

Fischer-Dieskau retired from concert and recital work in 1992 and devoted himself to conducting, painting and writing in his final two decades. He died in Berg, Bavaria, in May 2012. Music Preserved’s archive includes a substantial range of his lieder, operatic and contemporary work.