In his 100th-birthday year, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (1925-2012, known as DFD for short) is re-emerging as the pervasive presence that he was 40 years ago as the world’s most-recorded baritone – with Benjamin Appl claiming special status amid many forthcoming tributes. He was DFD’s last student, has a good recording career of his own and, on this release, has the obvious cooperation of the Fischer-Dieskau family. The selections from Schubert to Schumann, Britten to Barber – sung by Appl – don’t attempt to encompass the vast musical territory of DFD (DG’s ‘Complete Lieder’ box-set alone has 107 discs) but touches base with stages in his life: his Berlin upbringing, POW camp concerts after the Second World War, rise to operatic and art-song fame, four marriages, teaching and retirement.

Much of this is documented, differently of course, in a 138-page companion book whose length is less considerable than it seems with everything in German, English and French translations. Still, the book is fascinating, even addictive, with a candid, scrapbook-style succession of photos, drawings and paintings by DFD plus letters to and from the great artists of his age. Though DFD is reasonably well documented with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau: A Biography by Hans A Neunzig (Amadeus Press: 1995) and Reverberations: The Memoirs of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (Fromm International: 1990), this unassuming collection of memorabilia and remembrances opens up the baritone’s only-somewhat-probed inner life.

Particularly in his earlier years, this supremely magisterial artist was a neurotic bundle of self doubt, tormented by personal relationships and, from what I’ve been told privately, smoked far more cigarettes than the pack-a-day habit he admitted to. He suffered greatly over the death of his first wife and didn’t find sustained happiness until later years with Julia Varady. Dieter (as he was known among friends) could also be wrong: when he told Appl that his name was too complicated for an international career, Appl’s rejoinder (never sent, out of respect) was ‘Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau’. More poignant is Appl’s account of his last lesson with him, in which DFD was alternately weeping and nodding out. This would seem to be a wholly different person from DFD’s professional life. Recording producer Walter Legge found him inscrutable. Britten feared him (even though the book contains a beyond-gracious DFD note around the time of the War Requiem). In recitals (at least ones I attended) he was generous but with a silver-plated reserve. This did not make me want to know more about him; the voice gave you all you really needed.

In my first encounter, his unforced flexible baritone – with its warm sheen unruffled by excessive vibrato – immediately became my new best friend. As years went on, he became all too businesslike aside from forays out of his comfort zone with operas such as Reimann’s Lear. Near the end, he was a classic case of over-exposure. My rediscovery of him in more recent years started in uncharacteristic repertoire – his masterfully reimagined portrayals of the title roles in Rigoletto and Falstaff – which led back to his German lieder recordings. Now, ‘Hommage à Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau’ feels essential as a total package, partly as a case study in uniquely sustained vocal achievement.

Appl’s musical choices avoid ‘greatest hits’. The only well-known selection is the first – Schubert’s ‘An die Musik’. Others include never-recorded songs composed by Fischer-Dieskau family members, plus one by Bruno Walter, that are pleasant mainstream-for-their-time signposts in his biography. Scrapbook songs, in other words, but not outclassed elsewhere on the disc by better-known composers, who are not always represented by their best works. As a concept programme, it works. Some of the best moments explore post-war trauma: Eisler’s ‘The Homecoming’, with its plain-spoken Bertolt Brecht text, and, with a lighter touch, the Künneke operetta aria ‘Ich bin nur ein armer Wandergesell’, about the life of an outcast. However powerful the words of ‘Hörnersang’ from Britten’s War Requiem, the music doesn’t do well in excerpted form.

As a singer, Appl assumes the role of a biographical tour guide, though not always to his credit. His dignified manner – stately tempos and a cool, antiseptic recording ambience – stands back from the repertoire. Though DFD could pivot from one musical idiom to another with no apparent effort, Appl is not so gifted. He articulates words beautifully (including the English-language Barber songs) but doesn’t always command the language. Exceptions to this include the alternately shouted and whispered ‘Tenebrae’, written for DFD by pre-Lear Reimann, the animation he brings to Fanny Hensel’s ‘Ach, die Augen sind es wieder’ and his depth of feeling in DFD’s German translation of Debussy’s ‘Beau soir’. Whether or not Appl felt duty-bound to give back to the master with this tribute, I hope he considers this mission accomplished and goes forward to projects without such extramusical responsibility – along with pianist James Baillieu, who finds occasions to sparkle in the most modest repertoire.