R.I.P Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau

I was very sad to hear, first thing this morning, of the death at the age of 86 of legendary singer Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. I can’t add anything to the host of tributes that have already appeared, except to say that his voice will always be very special to me because his recording of Schubert’s Winterreise (with Gerald Moore on piano) was the first I ever heard of any Schubert Lieder.

Instead of trying to write an appreciation which couldn’t possibly to justice to the man and his musical legacy, I’ll just post this video and let it speak for itself. This is Winterreise in its entirety, performed in 1979 by Fischer-Dieskau with Alfred Brendel on piano.

Rest in peace, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (1925-2012).

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Winterreise – Das Wirtshaus

It’s cold again, and it’s just  started snowing, so here’s some wintry music. I know that the recording of Winterreise by Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears is by no means everyone’s favourite version, but I like it a lot. There’s the added bonus in this video of a glimpse of the art of Caspar David Friedrich.

P.S. Das Wirtshaus means “The Inn”, but in the poem by Müller that forms the lyric for this song, the inn is actually a graveyard…

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