On the Everlasting Legacy of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau with Benjamin Appl

German baritone Benjamin Appl honours his teacher and mentor, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, through a deeply personal and reflective recording project.

How did this project come about?

Meeting Fischer-Dieskau and working with him for more than three years was one of the greatest gifts in my professional life. He was always a hero to me, a singer, a voice, an artist to look up to. He shaped me, particularly in singing songs, like no one else. When I met him last, the last two times we met shortly before he died, he was always worried about his legacy and that he will be forgotten.

And this project, this album for me, is a contribution to work exactly against his fears. He won’t be forgotten. But I thought it’s nice to create a project where those who knew him or heard him sing live could gain deeper insight into who he was, what drove him, and the life events that shaped him as a musician.

Therefore I went through his private correspondence, love letters, diaries, contracts and programmes over the past two and a half years and I scanned around 20,000 to 30,000 pages. From that material, I wrote the booklet for this album and selected music that was important in his life, which most people would not immediately associate with him. So there might be some surprises in the repertoire, but all connected with events in his life which were important for him as a human.

On a musical level there is some music that surprised me. For example, an operetta he performed while a prisoner of war in Italy. Later in his life he was never interested in operetta but he built the stage, made props, rehearsed it, was the stage director, more or less conducted it and sang the main character. Compositions by his father and brother showed his musical upbringing and the aesthetics that surrounded him as a child.

Yet also on a personal level, some letters and some events in his life which were deeply revealing. With Fischer-Dieskau himself always being a very private person, not giving away too much from who he is. Writing about someone who always tried to shield himself away from publicity that required balance and respect. That was one of the biggest challenges of this project, to write and show who he was, yet be authentic and respectful towards him and his family.

I began thinking about this project about two and a half years ago and started looking into the documents. Many documents are now housed at the Staatsbibliothek in Berlin and are accessible with permission. Others remain with his family, especially his wife, Júlia Várady. I also met the family of his brother, Klaus Fischer-Dieskau, who wrote a diary and composed music using texts by Fischer-Dieskau. I made my way through all these personal, and sometimes not easy, family connections. It was just great to have access on different levels but also a jungle to find your way through.

From recording the works by family members Albert and Klaus Fischer-Dieskau to core repertoire favourites, what was your process for selecting the tracks for this album? Was there a particular work that held special significance for you?

The obvious choice when making a commemoration of a great artist would be to select his favourite songs or his most successful songs that he’s most known for. But of course, being of the same voice type and Fischer-Dieskau being the face of German songs and likely to stay on as the most famous Lieder singer in history, for every other artist it doesn’t matter how well or bad they perform, it is always a challenge to stand up next to him.

Therefore I thought, what’s the purpose of recording his best songs? I wanted to find an approach through his life in a way of going through his biography and accompany that with interesting pieces, especially in his childhood, his time as a German soldier and prisoner of war, and then to returning to Germany and making his career. The choice of selections of music, sometimes like as a prisoner of war in Italy, where he had to sing repertoire where he just got the music for, there was not so much choice. Afterwards, his career really started and he performed in the same opera houses for twenty, thirty, forty years and it became more repetitive in a way. I didn’t find this time so interesting on a personal level for me, so while these years were important, I chose compositions composed by his brothers and his father. But also the repertoire I found in some programmes that he performed in the working camps in Italy.

I found it very interesting that straight after the war already in 1945-46, he decided to learn and perform French, Russian, and English songs. I find as a German soldier coming out of the war after being imprisoned by the Americans, performing this music in front of six-thousand German soldiers and prisons, an extraordinary sign of thinking ahead in the future. He was already thinking of reconciliation and seeing the beauty of art in other nations, in nations which were enemies a few months ago. Then he also started translating some of the songs into German by Debussy and Tchaikovsky. In terms of a wider picture on the political human canvas, I found it quite interesting.

Learning from Fischer-Dieskau clearly had an impact on you. Is there a particularly memorable story or experience of working together?

Certainly there are also many times I think of him and my working sessions with him. He was not just a teacher for technique and interpretation, he was a real mentor, talking about the background of the poem, the situation of the composer, and the harmonic structure. But then also how to stand on stage, how to perform stagecraft, how to walk on stage, on how to deal with promoters and agents. There were plenty of components in this working relationship.

But I always found the most extraordinary thing in him was that despite having a stage career of forty-five years more or less, he never got tired. He delivered and delivered, and every time he tried to create something, to see something new and to get deeper into it.

I remember his wife told me actually when I came to the last time to his house, we were working on some Schubert songs, and he apparently was sitting two hours before I arrived in his armchair with the score and tried to completely as he always had done to remember all the details, what was in the piano part and the harmonics and so on. And he was not able to get it all into his brain anymore. His wife said to him because he got quite upset, she said, “Well, you can use the score. He can sing off of a copy.” And he replied, “No, I really have standards to have everything there and know it.” And I thought that was an extraordinary story, since he just had the hunger and the need, the urge of always digging deeper and that’s something I find very inspiring.

What's one thing you'd like our audience to know about Fischer-Dieskau?

I think there has been no one since Fischer-Dieskau that has come together with a huge portion of talent, hard work, one of the most beautiful voices – a timeless voice – which people can still listen to, of intelligence, but also of emotional connection to music. But on top, he came at the right time. He came after the war as a young man who was thinking worldly, who was thinking in a different way. With his art based in German song, he probably recorded more LPs in opera and German song than any other singer in the world while bringing in a new way of presenting German songs and was an exporter for German culture around the world and changed the image of Germany.

And he loved the microphone while other artists at this time really hated the microphone and saw it as an enemy. He embraced it and was really in love with the microphone. Someone said he was married five times—he was married to four women and the fifth wife was a microphone. And it’s kind of true. He became incredibly popular because he recorded all of these albums and was played around the world. It was a time when records really made a huge difference and he was also able to record a lot of repertoire which some people never had heard before, which had never been recorded before.

We in our time would love to have the greatest musician to discover a new Mozart concerto or a new Wagner opera suddenly and be the first person to really spread it around and record it. He had all these opportunities at the same time. For him, it came together: this huge portion of talent, hard work, luck and being in the right time and place.

On a personal level it is wonderful being with someone in a room who is such a hero and experiencing his presence. Often you can't put it into words, but it means so much when you have someone – it doesn't have to be an artist, it can be an intellectual or religious leader – it could be anyone who has a huge personality and the atmosphere which is so inspiring in the room and changes something in your thinking, in your singing, in your performing, in your feeling. I found that every time I saw him through the years that he had such a strong impact also on that personal level for me and I'm very grateful for having had so many opportunities to experience it.

Was there a particular work that Fischer-Dieskau recorded that holds special significance for you?

The most moving work for me is really Benjamin Britten's War Requiem, which he premiered, and I recently went to Aldeburgh to the archive to see the original score and to read more about it there and to understand the impact it had — not just on him. It was probably the first time he really started talking, opening up about his feelings of war, this period of time, but then also standing there in Coventry in a newly built cathedral, which almost represented to him in a way a newly built German culture after the war. For the premiere, standing originally next to a Russian soprano who was not allowed to take part, but the idea of recording together was there. So the Russian soprano, the German baritone, the English tenor standing there. I spoke also to the composer John Rutter, who was a choirboy in the first recording which was an interesting link. And he described the experience so beautifully there, that while English people are quite uptight and didn't talk about the war and their experience, however through this music of war, it channelled all what they experienced inside them. They let the music speak and music was consolation in this moment. It was bringing peace and the people together. And therefore out of political reasons and the way he sings it, that's the most important piece to me that he performed in his life

With your background of starting in music, studying banking and business, and then to a music career that really took off, how do you see these two distinct pursuits of yours influencing and affecting each other?

While growing up I was in the Regensburger Domspatzen. I loved singing, but I could have never imagined the life I'm living now out of a suitcase, with quite a lot of insecurities in life, and that you have to trust always your vocal production. Therefore, I needed some time to consider and think. I decided to do a trainee programme in a banking apprenticeship, which was not too bad, and, I didn't have any experiences before in banking, nor any interests, but somehow it grew on me, and therefore I decided to study business afterwards. But while studying business, I missed something in these huge lectures of five-hundred students in one room, and the professor lectures for hours and you write a script, write it down, and learn it by heart.

It was the process of working on yourself and working on your emotions and feelings in music that I missed massively. And therefore, I was drawn back into singing. I wanted to study music for just one year at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, and then go back to banking. I always received quite interesting offers from professionals there, and sometimes on days, of course, when you had a bad audition or not so great singing lesson, it was very financially tempting to go back there.

Anyways, I decided to become a singer and I'm very happy about it. And I think it's one of the most beautiful professions ever most of the time. Sometimes, of course, it has all the downsides and it's stressful and lots of travelling. But I find that studying business generally helped me a lot in thinking analytically. I think the entire package of a musician changed a lot. Talking about Fischer-Dieskau, I think he was also lucky because he could live a life which I would love to live in a way, as now we have more parts in our profession we have to cover — from social media, self-management or booking travel to conversing with management, with agents, reading contracts, doing my taxes myself. There's certain aspects of analytic thinking, also in studying a score, for example. I think these are all things which helped me in the music making today. The way of working on yourself and reflecting also helped me through my time in banking and also in the way of communicating with customers.

Was there an identifiable turning point in your singing career? An event or occurrence that separates into before and after?

It was going with the flow, I must say. I didn't want to make a decision and I just went to London and I let it all come and see where it led me. Until today, I find I never actually made a decision actually, it just happened. Sometimes what I find in life, often when you think too hard about things, if you should take this engagement or how you deal with this person and when you think for weeks and weeks and you have sleepless nights, these decisions often turn out to be completely insignificant in life. And the other ones which you decide while passing by or without making a conscientious decision, they often have a way bigger impact on your life. And that's exactly what happened, particularly with my profession.

In January this year you gave your conducting debut with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra with Handel's Messiah, can you share where and when you caught the conducting bug?

Since I was a child I always wanted to become a conductor. I found it interesting as a child, how someone can keep everything in line and where the entire energy flows together. Late in life, I found working with quite a lot of conductors interesting, with the psychological aspect of conducting, how to deal with so many personalities and often not always easy personalities in music. As a conductor, you try to lead and direct through a rehearsal or a piece and that for me was the more interesting part of conducting than actually the beating itself.

It was four or five years ago that someone observed me. I often attended the orchestra rehearsal, although I wasn't called, it was just to see and observe. And in the back of the hall, I was conducting along. And actually someone saw me conducting and afterwards offered me a job with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. I thought that this time it's absolutely ridiculous because at this time I had no training. But then I started conducting lessons and thought about it, and it felt right to do. It's a journey and the nice thing for me is I can now have the time to study and there's not a pressure like someone who studies conducting and finishes his studies and now has to find work desperately. If something comes and if it needs one year or six months or ten years, I'm not in a rush. And it's a wonderful, wonderful feeling.

From a look at your calendar it looks like you are mostly doing recitals for the next few weeks. Do you envision yourself returning to performing regularly in major opera productions? Or do you prefer solo performances?

I normally do one opera per year and just did the Magic Flute, in Hamburg as Papageno. I find it inspiring and interesting to work with other colleagues, to experience opera stages, to work with a conductor and stage director, which then of course helps me in my song recitals. Nevertheless, my heart really lies in this repertoire. I find it's the highest art form in music through the connection of lyrics and music. And also having the freedom of putting my own programmes together, focusing on particular concepts on topics which are essential to me, but hopefully also to other people and to have the freedom to work with the musicians I love, where I'm pretty free in my diary where I can decide where to go and when to go. It is a lot of freedom, and I find sometimes when I do opera, I have to give up quite a lot of that, and sometimes I struggle with it. I love the repertoire in songs since there a lot can be done, and I love seeing new places. I love meeting new people and I find it all very inspiring. For me, songs and recitals are the most fulfilling part of my life. That's for sure.

Say you were booked on a one-hundred-concert tour, what work would you choose to perform repeatedly, one that offers endless exploration?

Oh, that's a difficult question. Well, I've done Winterreise around one-hundred and fifty times. I would say it's Winterreise because I wouldn't mind to do it another one-hundred times. It's a piece which I find always very inspiring and that I'm open to experiencing what's around me during the cycle. The temperature in the room, the smell in the room, the colours of the walls, the light intensity, the responses from the audience during the recital, the interaction with certain members of the audience influence so much the interpretation I'm doing every night. That's for me the most fulfilling part and I find Winterreise covers a lot of all emotions we all carry inside us.

Is there another instrument you feel a connection to or one that you identify with beyond your own voice

When I was a child, I tried to play the violin and the viola. Therefore, I would not. That was a traumatic experience and I would not go for that. I love the cello. I think it's incredibly beautiful and so close to the human voice. I love also the oboe. So I think these are probably my most favourite instruments.

How do you keep yourself fresh with such a busy performing schedule? Do you have a go-to routine?

Not really. I had that in the beginning of my career and I suffered a lot because life always throws lemons and you never know what your day will bring. Sometimes you have delays of trains, particularly in this country, or some other things happening and it throws you off the cliff if you are superstitious or if you need that certain routine. I try to really detach myself from anything which has tradition on the concert day and try to be as free as open minded as possible and therefore adjustable, so I really fight getting into routines.

Dream collaboration – who is an artist that you’d like to work with once in your life?

There are great conductors I would love to work with and there are certainly musicians as well. Though if it's the older generation, and I wonder sometimes if it makes sense since they're fantastic signature artists, yet it's sometimes unfair to the younger generation, because maybe there, there's some equally good ones, but they don't have the platinum albums. In terms of conductors, I would love to work with Sir Simon Rattle since I've never worked with Rattle. There are some pianists I would love to work with, would have loved to work with, for example Martha Argerich. And there are some popular singers I would love to experience being with on stage with: Adele, and I love Jacob Collier. I could continue now and probably keep saying a few, but I think this is enough.

I love working with people and experiencing it all. And that's also why I think of so many pianists, because I find it inspiring what that cooperation brings to you. And particularly a piece when you asked me a piece for me one-hundred times, I would want to do it one-hundred times, but maybe the solution would be to do it every time with another pianist, because it just keeps imagining. It keeps your mind open. You have to be reactive. You have to offer something, but you also have to take something in.

Are there any composers, works, or genres you’d like to explore more?

I'm open minded for all kinds of things, if it's a musical theatre, if it's with singer-songwriters, if it's pop music, I find I’m interested in it all. There are also operas that I would love to do. I would love to do L'Orfeo by Monteverdi but in the repertoire I feel like I've done most of the things I've wanted to.

Overall in music, I think we're just like painters. We have a bold choice of colours in front of us and the possibility to mix those colours and to collect even more different shades of red, grey, or whatever. This gives us more freedom in painting on our canvas, and that's exactly how I feel as a musician, as a singer. To be open-minded, to listen to and experience different kinds of music, even if I don't use it.

That’s what I find fascinating now and the journey goes. But for example, I do a project with Thomas Dunford, the luteist, where we rediscover the music of Schubert, French melodies and pop songs to show the audience that the intention of the songs hasn't changed, and we look as we should do in our society, more for the similarities and the differences. We do this programme to show that the intention of the composers and writers haven’t changed, the human emotions haven’t changed. The desires we have, the fears and therefore, that these pieces are maybe closer together as we think. It’s what I think we should all do in our society–seek out similarities rather than looking for differences.

For Dieter: Hommage à Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau is out on IDAGIO now.