Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau - Autumn Journey
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Label: NVC Arts
Magazine Review Date: 8/1998
Media Format: Video
Media Runtime: 188
Mastering:
Stereo
ADD
Catalogue Number: 3984-23031-3
Author:
This is pretty well what such things should be. The mind learns almost equally by eye and by ear. Enough is said about the life to enrich appreciation of the art, but not so much that it becomes the centre of interest or of interest essentially as gossip. We are never for long away from the great composers. Childhood and wartime, dates, places and people, all have their place, but we return constantly to Bach and Mozart, Verdi and Wagner and above all to Schubert. The singer talks without the intervention of an interviewer; and he talks usefully, not in platitude and triviality. At the end of the ‘documentary’ there is a filmed Schubert recital, with a minimum of visual distraction: two-dozen songs enterprisingly selected and sung with the mature sensibility and accomplishment of a master.
A lot of ground is covered, and though the manner of it may seem unmethodical a firm hand is at work, picking tidily and systematically so that comprehensiveness is achieved with a right sense of proportion. The starting-point is the evening of December 31st, 1992, when the decision was made to retire from singing. It was after a concert performance of Falstaff in Munich, and (“tutto nel mondo e burla”) it seemed the right moment. Later we are to see some more of his Falstaff, its cherubic “Quand’ero paggio” being one of the most delightful of visual memories. He says that he approached comedy with caution, and yet, surprisingly perhaps, the face (like Callas’s) adapts readily: much of his interview-talk is spoken with a smile. The face itself is fascinating to watch, whether in the 60-year-old’s finely-lined clarity of feature or in the almost chubby boyish look of the younger man. We perhaps don’t think of Fischer-Dieskau as having what we might call a singer’s face, but the camera is nothing if not revealing, and in shots taken from below we see a jaw and cheek-cavities that might almost be Gigli’s. As for expressiveness, there is hardly a need to supplement what the voice itself achieves; yet the face does reflect the workings of the imagination, and there is (for instance) a moment in Der Erlkonig where, almost as in a film-‘dissolve’, the face of the father is replaced by the glittering eyes and predatory smile of the spirit-creature.
His prodigious work as a recording artist also comes into the film. We see him working with Gerald Moore on the Schubert song-edition: 500 songs in two years. The Solti Gotterdammerung is there, with Nilsson’s pick-axe laughter and a glimpse of John Culshaw, who in his book wrote that the casting of Gunther had been the biggest headache till he thought of Fischer-Dieskau. And how that Gunther rewarded the producer’s faith – with a performance as truly and thoroughly acted (we see it) as if he were on stage.
Among the stage performances sampled is a moving passage from Reimann’s Lear with Julia Varady as Cordelia. And possibly the most memorable minutes in the whole film are of a home-rehearsal in which Fischer-Dieskau works with Varady (his wife) on Amelia’s “Morro” aria in Un ballo in maschera. That and a rehearsal of him conducting Schubert’s Fifth Symphony show the complete musician, the knowledge and understanding of a huge library of scores stored in his mind. The Nurnberg Schubert recital shown at the end would be marvellous simply as a demonstration of mental mastery, even if the singing itself were less remarkable.
This is a man, a singer and musician, who has brought distinction to our age and yet is almost an anachronism in it. He seems untouched by pop culture, fashionable trends, headlines and commercialism. The documentary confirms that impression, and the filmed recital confirms all that one remembers of his incomparable art.'
A lot of ground is covered, and though the manner of it may seem unmethodical a firm hand is at work, picking tidily and systematically so that comprehensiveness is achieved with a right sense of proportion. The starting-point is the evening of December 31st, 1992, when the decision was made to retire from singing. It was after a concert performance of Falstaff in Munich, and (“tutto nel mondo e burla”) it seemed the right moment. Later we are to see some more of his Falstaff, its cherubic “Quand’ero paggio” being one of the most delightful of visual memories. He says that he approached comedy with caution, and yet, surprisingly perhaps, the face (like Callas’s) adapts readily: much of his interview-talk is spoken with a smile. The face itself is fascinating to watch, whether in the 60-year-old’s finely-lined clarity of feature or in the almost chubby boyish look of the younger man. We perhaps don’t think of Fischer-Dieskau as having what we might call a singer’s face, but the camera is nothing if not revealing, and in shots taken from below we see a jaw and cheek-cavities that might almost be Gigli’s. As for expressiveness, there is hardly a need to supplement what the voice itself achieves; yet the face does reflect the workings of the imagination, and there is (for instance) a moment in Der Erlkonig where, almost as in a film-‘dissolve’, the face of the father is replaced by the glittering eyes and predatory smile of the spirit-creature.
His prodigious work as a recording artist also comes into the film. We see him working with Gerald Moore on the Schubert song-edition: 500 songs in two years. The Solti Gotterdammerung is there, with Nilsson’s pick-axe laughter and a glimpse of John Culshaw, who in his book wrote that the casting of Gunther had been the biggest headache till he thought of Fischer-Dieskau. And how that Gunther rewarded the producer’s faith – with a performance as truly and thoroughly acted (we see it) as if he were on stage.
Among the stage performances sampled is a moving passage from Reimann’s Lear with Julia Varady as Cordelia. And possibly the most memorable minutes in the whole film are of a home-rehearsal in which Fischer-Dieskau works with Varady (his wife) on Amelia’s “Morro” aria in Un ballo in maschera. That and a rehearsal of him conducting Schubert’s Fifth Symphony show the complete musician, the knowledge and understanding of a huge library of scores stored in his mind. The Nurnberg Schubert recital shown at the end would be marvellous simply as a demonstration of mental mastery, even if the singing itself were less remarkable.
This is a man, a singer and musician, who has brought distinction to our age and yet is almost an anachronism in it. He seems untouched by pop culture, fashionable trends, headlines and commercialism. The documentary confirms that impression, and the filmed recital confirms all that one remembers of his incomparable art.'
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