Fischer-Dieskau
and Me
by Celia Sgroi
State University of New York College at Oswego
However, even without Fassbaender, there was going to be a
lot going on at the Schubertiade in 1995, including a Fischer-Dieskau master
class, which I was very much looking forward to. I had seen him conduct master
classes on tape, and he was very impressive. Given that he had cancelled the
first master class he had scheduled at the Schubertiade, in 1993, I thought it
was high time that the event actually took place.
Fischer-Dieskau's 70th birthday was May 28, 1995. Despite
indications of all sorts of activity and celebrations of the fact in Europe, it
was not even noted in the U.S., as far as I was aware. I held my own
celebration. One of the things that immediately caught my eye as the
Schubertiade advertising made its way into my house was the announcement of a
full scale biography of Fischer-Dieskau by Hans A. Neunzig. I knew that I would
be buying that as soon as I had the opportunity.
Unlike the previous year, I was going to attend a great
many recitals during the nearly two weeks I would be at the Schubertiade. I
stopped over one day in Zurich to recover from my jet lag before traveling by
train to Feldkirch the next morning. When I arrived at the Hotel Rosenberger, I
was pleased to find that this year the management had done its homework and
prepared for the influx of foreign festival guests, not to mention demanding
artists. Upon reaching my room, I found a little plate of fruit and chocolates
and a rose to welcome me. From that, I deduced that the Fischer-Dieskaus would
find a fruit basket when they occupied their suite, and flowers, as well.
Perhaps Julia Varady wouldn't have to spend so much of her time complaining
this year.
Once I had gotten myself settled, I made my first trip to
the Schubertiade ticket office, now conveniently located in the foyer of the
Montforthaus, to see what was for sale and if there had been any alterations to
the concert schedule. As I was browsing through the books and CDs, I was
greeted by name by one of the Schubertiade staff. I concluded that I must now
count as a "regular," a pleasant surprise.
I duly purchased my bound volume of Schubertiade programs
and the Fischer-Dieskau biography, and noted that they would be showing a
documentary film about Fischer-Dieskau in the Montforthaus every afternoon
during the festival. When I went upstairs to take a first look at the
exhibition of Fischer-Dieskau's paintings that occupied the main gallery space
on the second floor, the film was already in progress in an adjoining room. I
made a mental note to be there bright and early the next day to see it. I also
bought two collections of F-D's paintings in book form. One looked to be a
catalog from an exhibition in Germany. In addition to the reproductions of the
paintings, there were four essays in the volume. The second was called DFD:
Reiseskizzen and proved to be a privately printed volume of F-D's drawings
and watercolors published by Julia Varady in honor of her husband's 70th
birthday. They both looked interesting, and I left quite a few Schillings
behind that day, much to the satisfaction of the Schubertiade staff.
My first concert of the fortnight was Roman Trekel,
accompanied by Oliver Pohl. Trekel sang a program of Schubert, Mendelssohn, and
Wolf. Again I was very impressed by Trekel as a Lieder singer, as I had been in
1993. His Schubert group included "Im Abendrot," "Auf der
Bruck," "Totengräberweise,"
and "Meeres Stille," and ended with the best "Der Zwerg" I
have ever heard aside from Fischer-Dieskau. Trekel is a young baritone from the
eastern part of Germany who is also active as an opera singer at the Staatsoper
in Berlin. Although he did not study with Fischer-Dieskau, his singing is very
much "school of Fischer-Dieskau." As is the case with most of the
present generation of Lieder singers I have heard, Trekel seemed most at home
with dramatic or extroverted songs. The second half of his program was Hugo
Wolf settings of poems by Goethe, and the three
"Harfenspielerlieder," "Prometheus," and
"Ganymed" were particularly memorable, as was "Anakreons
Grab."
My second day in Feldkirch saw the first of what was to
prove to be several cancellations. Angelika Kirchschlager was scheduled to give
an afternoon Lieder recital in the Konservatoriumssaal, but she cancelled at
the last minute. The management substituted a young baritone named Sebastian
Bluth, who was a Fischer-Dieskau pupil in Feldkirch to take part in F-D's
master class. I did not hear this concert myself, but the report was that he
had a pretty voice and acquitted himself well but did not have much
personality. Since he looked very young indeed, that didn't seem surprising.
At the Schubertiade, the custom is that notices of
cancellations or program changes are announced on little slips of paper that
appear mysteriously in the Schubertiade ticket office. The same day that
Sebastian Bluth stepped in for Angelika Kirchschlager, another little slip of
paper announced that "Unfortunately Frau Kammersängerin
Julia Varady-Fischer-Dieskau cannot take part in the "Grosse musikalische
Akademie" on June 18th because of an indisposition. Instead of the planned
Lieder, Andras Schiff (who was supposed to accompany Varady in some Schubert
songs) will play the Impromptus in A-flat major and F minor, D 935."
I sighed. Everybody who read the notice sighed. How many
chances do you get to hear Julia Varady sing Schubert Lieder accompanied by
Andras Schiff? As usual, people questioned whether the
"indisposition" was real. The skepticism was fueled by the sight of
Varady, looking quite healthy, accompanying her husband to a rehearsal of Lazarus,
which F-D was conducting. I was sitting at a terrace table of the restaurant
next to the Montforthaus late that afternoon when F-D and Varady emerged from
the rehearsal, surrounded by a clutch of young singers. F-D lingered for a
while to finish talking to them while Varady hovered, looking at her watch and
sending signals that they were late. Finally F-D, suddenly aware of the time,
grabbed his wife by the hand, and dragged her across the Leonhardsplatz toward
the hotel, almost as if it were she who had kept him waiting. I
remember thinking: I hope she makes him pay for this when they get to the
privacy of their room.
That evening, Andras Schiff played Schubert sonatas in the
Montforthaus. He, at least, was healthy and in good form. He had also become
the iron man and workhorse of the Schubertiade, turning his hand to everything
from solos to chamber music to accompanying. Had they asked him to sing, he
probably would have taken that on, too. After the concert, my journalist friend
asked him what was the matter with Varady. He merely shrugged and gave that
mysterious little smile of his.
The next day began with a recital by Nicolai Gedda,
accompanied by David Lutz. Gedda sang songs by Schubert, Grieg, Dvorak, and
Rimsky-Korsakov. Unfortunately, it was amply clear from the beginning of the
concert that Gedda was in distress. His stance and the stiff way he held his
body suggested he was in pain and he actually seemed short of breath. He
completed the recital and was very warmly received, but one did not have to be
a doctor to know something was wrong. We learned later that he was suffering
from chest pains and was returning immediately to Sweden to see his doctor.
Since he had also been scheduled for the "Grosse musikalische
Akademie," the gala concert in honor of F-D's 70th birthday, we waited to
see what substitution would be made. They rearranged the program a bit and used
Sebastian Bluth again. This young man was getting a lot of air time as a result
of indispositions.
That same evening was the performance of Lazarus. I
was sitting in the foyer of the hotel in the late afternoon when Julia Varady
emerged from the restaurant with a couple of rolls on a plate. (Her habit
appeared to be to raid the salad bar instead of calling for room service. I
dare say that they were paying enough for their suite that she felt she could
help herself to what she wanted. She did the same thing in the morning with the
breakfast buffet. Instead of having breakfast sent up, she came down and chose
what she wanted from the buffet and had it carried upstairs. Based on her
selections, I deduce that she and F-D mostly lived on bread, yogurt, and fruit.
Some of the guests considered this to be rather bizarre behavior, but it seemed
that Varady didn't care much what other people thought when she was in pursuit
of what she wanted. Some of the criticism seemed to be born of jealousy
anyway—It was alleged that she and F-D got served decaffeinated coffee in the
morning when no one else could get it. Another source opined that they brought
it with them. Be that as it may, the other guests resented it.) As Varady
headed for the elevator with her booty, she stopped in the foyer to talk to a
couple of the young singers who were performing in Lazarus. And it was
thus that I overheard the omninous query: "And how is your husband feeling?"
Varady shrugged and said he was feeling a bit better.
Oh hell, I thought. I know what this means. A bit later I
met some friends for dinner out on the Leonhardsplatz before the concert and
reported my news. Everyone agreed that the outlook was not rosy. Nevertheless,
we were still sitting over our coffee when Fischer-Dieskau and Varady crossed
the square on their way to the stage entrance of the Montforthaus. He was
carrying a large briefcase, and Varady was carrying his dress suit on a hanger.
My journalist friend was standing in the square talking to some people when
they walked by and she wished F-D luck with his performance. As they were
passing by, Varady recognized my friend and went back to say hello. F-D stopped
his progress toward the concert hall and watched his wife and his dress suit
heading in the opposite direction. Since he was standing quite close to where
we were sitting, I could see his pained look quite clearly. Finally, he got his
wife and his suit back and could continue on to get ready for his concert.
This was the first time I had heard Lazarus and
didn't know what to expect. The singers were all former F-D pupils with the
exception of one soprano, Birgid Steinberger. I had heard Matthias Goerne once
before, but the rest of them were new to the Schubertiade. I found Lazarus
very moving and was so immersed in it that when it ended abruptly in the second
act I felt shocked, even though I knew it was a fragment. The male singers,
tenors Christian Elsner and Lother Odinius and baritone Matthias Goerne, were
particularly impressive. I had never heard F-D conduct a vocal work before, and
he was very much in command of an intense, dramatic performance. The only thing
that surprised me a bit was the extremely slow tempo. Later, I asked people if Lazarus
was always played that slowly and was informed that it was. At the end of the
performance, F-D made a point of congratulating all the young singers, complete
with hugs and pats on the back. Some people in the audience seemed to think
that was unnecessary, but it looked to me as if F-D had found a new flock of
children. His manner was very paternal, and the singers seemed to be very
comfortable with that.
The next morning, F-D and Gert Westphal gave a reading in
the Konservatoriumssaal. On this occasion, the subject was the correspondence
between Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal. I had done some reading in
advance this time and had indulged in a bit of guessing about which letters
they would use. As I had thought, they spent a good deal of time on the
correspondence relating to the creation of Der Rosenkavalier. Again, the
letters were presented as a conversation between the two correspondents. Gert
Westphal took on the role of Hofmannsthal and Fischer-Dieskau was Richard
Strauss, complete with the hint of a Bavarian accent. At one point, Westphal
was reading a letter that contained a description of a gloomy, rainy day. He
broke off to say to Fischer-Dieskau: "Have we ever done this when it was not
raining outside?" The audience laughed, and so did Fischer-Dieskau, who
was so distracted that he lost his place in the reading. The best moment was
when Westphal read a letter from Hofmannsthal to Strauss in which he detailed
the reasons why Strauss should not become the director of the Wiener Staatsoper.
F-D had nothing to say during this lengthy critique, but his face spoke
volumes. He started out looking indulgent and self-satisfied, then gradually
his expression changed to surprise, then offense, then fury. It was masterfully
done, and Westphal had to work hard to keep from being upstaged. (He also
looked pleased, I thought.) Both Westphal and F-D were simply superb, and they
made a great team. I hoped that they would be performing together again the
following year.
One thing I noticed, however, was that all during the
performance F-D was unobtrusively wiping his nose, using throat drops, and
sipping water. It suggested that he was, indeed, suffering from some ailment.
That impression was confirmed in the afternoon when F-D signed autographs in the
gallery where his paintings were being exhibited. By that time, he looked like
someone who was heavily medicated and highly uncomfortable. You didn't need to
be a doctor to see that he had a fever. He seemed to be surrounded by a hot
little cloud.
Nevertheless, that evening he and Julia Varady duly
appeared and took their places front row center in the Montforthaus for the
concert in honor of his 70th birthday. The program was a collection of vocal
and instrumental pieces by friends and former pupils of F-D. The first part
featured a flock of young singers, including Juliane Banse, Christian Elsner,
Lothar Odinius, Matthias Goerne, Roman Trekel, and Oliver Widmer, in songs by
Schubert, culminating in the "Contribution to the 50th Anniversary celebration
of Maestro Salieri." When the young singers performed the canon
"Unser aller Grosspapa/Bleibe noch recht lange da," there was an
enormous wave of applause while F-D sat there and laughed. Peter Schreier sang
solo songs by Schubert and then came to the edge of the stage to get a hug from
F-D. Andras Schiff played Schubert impromptus and also got a hug. Gert
Westphal, accompanied by Wolfram Rieger, performed Liszt's melodrama Der
traurige Mönch
and also got a hug from the birthday boy. The concert also included six
songs by Robert Schumann arranged for soprano and string quartet by Aribert
Reimann (who was also present) and performed by Juliane Banse and the Cherubini
Quartet.
Most of the second half of the concert was devoted to a
performance of Saint-Saens' Carnival of the Animals played by the
Scharoun ensemble with a narration written and spoken by Loriot, another F-D
friend. This narration, interspersed with references to the famous singer
celebrating his "runden Geburtstag," got a great many laughs. The concert
ended with the entire ensemble singing the finale to Bach's Cantata 212:
"Es lebe Dieskau und sein Haus,/Ihm sei beschert,/Was er begehrt,/Und was
er sich selbst wuenschen mag!" The audience responded with thunderous
applause and a standing ovation. Juliane Banse descended into the audience to
give the birthday boy a bouquet and lead him onto the stage, where a great deal
of hugging and kissing ensued, including F-D plowing his way through the entire
ensemble of participants to find Andras Schiff lurking on the periphery and
give him an enormous bear-hug. Finally, the birthday boy said a few words of
thanks to the audience. He also apologized. "I've been sitting here all
evening doing what I have always deplored in audiences: I coughed!" This
got a laugh, but it was true. No one was surprised when F-D and Varady, bearing
bouquets, made their way back to the hotel and promptly went upstairs, skipping
the party for the cast.
The following morning, F-D's master class was supposed to
begin at 10:30. Assuming the worst, I went to the Schubertiade office to see if
it had been cancelled and was told it had not been. Accordingly, I took myself
to the appropriate venue at the scheduled time, only to find a line of people
waiting to be admitted. After waiting past the starting time, the audience was
admitted. Once we were in our seats, Gerd Nachbauer, the director of the
festival, appeared. Mr. Fischer-Dieskau had the flu and, because he had to be
able to sing (enough to demonstrate) in order to conduct the class as he wished
to, he had cancelled. However, Mr. Nachbauer had asked Juliane Banse and
Wolfram Rieger if they were willing to take over the class, and they had
agreed. If people wanted a refund, they could leave now. If not, the class
would begin. Some people got up and left at once. I, like most people, decided
to give it a try. However, by the break I could tell that I was not going to
find it satisfactory, so I left and turned in my tickets for the remainder of
the sessions.
Most people I talked to were astonished and angry about the
way the matter had been handled. I talked to a Danish woman from the
International Schubert Society who had bought a ticket only that morning and
had not been warned that F-D had cancelled. It all seemed very underhanded, and
people resented it. Moreover, the substitution of two very young, inexperienced
musicians for Fischer-Dieskau seemed absurd. Later, my journalist friend asked
Juliane Banse how the substitution had occurred. She told us that Nachbauer had
approached her the night before at the cast party after the concert. F-D had
cancelled the master class, and he and Varady were leaving that night to drive
home. Banse and Rieger had agreed to give it a try but were astonished to find
that there wasn't even any background information available about the
participants. F-D had taken everything with him when he left. We also talked to
a couple of the participants and discovered that they had not learned of the
cancellation until the same time that the audience had. One of the singers, a
baritone from Switzerland, had withdrawn from the class. All of this seemed
really questionable behavior on the part of the festival management. It
appeared that F-D, at least, had assumed that the class would be called off,
which explained why he had not left the materials on the students. Mr.
Nachbauer, however, had apparently decided to try to salvage a little money on
the deal by making the substitution.
For my part, I was sorry and disappointed to miss yet
another F-D master class, but I couldn't see the point of listening to Banse
and Rieger for four days. What intrigued me further was that Mr. Nachbauer was
insisting that F-D had not withdrawn from the final concert of the festival and
would be back to play the Divertissement a la hongroise and accompany
the Kantate für
Irene Kiesewetter with Andras Schiff. Somehow, this
seemed highly unlikely. If F-D had the flu on Monday, how was he going to
recover enough to come back to Feldkirch to perform on Saturday? I concluded
that the cancellation would simply be announced later.
In the meantime, there were more concerts to attend. Peter
Schreier and Andras Schiff sang Schubert songs to poems by Rueckert, Rellstab,
and Heine, including "Auf dem Strom" with hornist Radovan Vlatkovic.
Schreier was not in his best voice (whatever that may be), but Schiff was
incredible. When he plays Schubert Lieder, they don't sound the way they do in
anyone else's hands. You simply hear things that you don't usually hear, and
it's a revelation. However, on this occasion Schreier must have been hearing
things he didn't usually hear, or he was having more than the usual number of
memory lapses, because singer and pianist often seemed not to be on the same
page (literally).
I also heard Oliver Widmer, accompanied by Roger Vignoles,
sing a entire program devoted to Schubert's settings of Mayrhofer. Hearing
Widmer was gradually becoming a frustrating experience. He always sang
everything correctly, in impeccable taste, and with a laudable seriousness, but
he was really quite colorless. It was disappointing. The following day,
Christoph Pregardien and Andreas Staier performed Die Schöne
Müllerin,
and that was a much more satisfying experience. However, it struck me more
forcibly than in the past that most of the time Pregardien sounded a lot more
like a baritone than a tenor, and it also struck me that I don't like the
Hammerklavier in this music anywhere near as well as a modern piano.
Nevertheless, it was one of the better concerts of the festival. Boje Skovhus,
accompanied by Helmut Deutsch, also sang Mayrhofer songs and Schumann's Dichterliebe.
He had a cold but had been prevailed upon not to add himself to the list of
cancellations. So he sang, but he was certainly very limited in what he could
do. Since he is not in any case on my short list of impressive singers of
Lieder, I can't say the result was very satisfying, but I'm sure that Mr.
Nachbauer was happy because he didn't have to refund any ticket money. And Bo
certainly looked good, cold or not.
The recital that made the most positive impression on me
during the festival was Brahms' Die Schöne
Magelone, performed by Peter Schreier, Andras
Schiff, and Gert Westphal, who read the accompanying narrative. As I have said
before, I am not a great fan of this cycle, but on this occasion it really
"clicked" for me. Schreier's is not the voice I most want to hear,
but his performance was intelligent and imaginative, with all the personality
and individuality I missed in most of the younger singers I had heard. Andras Schiff's
playing made it clear to me, once and for all, that a pianist of this calibre
is required to really make the cycle come alive. And Westphal's reading of the
narrative, in turn dramatic and humorous, pulled the entire performance
together. This concert, given in the Konservatoriumssaal, had a very intimate,
relaxed feel to it, and you could almost imagine that it was being given in
someone's living room. The overall impression was incredibly powerful. You just
disappeared into the cycle and didn't reappear until it was over, at which time
you marveled that the time had passed so quickly. And I have to say that time
rarely passes quickly for me when I listen to this cycle, where the songs are
long and seem even longer. I count this as one of the best recital experiences
I have ever had, and I am very grateful I got to hear it.
Time was marching on toward the final concert of the
festival, and there had still been no announcement of Fischer-Dieskau's
cancellation. I heard at second hand (through his mother) that Andras Schiff
was extremely unhappy because, if F-D did show up, there was going to be the
bare minimum of rehearsal time for their performance, and if he was sick, how
much practicing would he have done? The prospects for a disaster seemed very
great. But that assumed he would come at all, and I just couldn't believe that
would occur.
In the meantime, there was the documentary film about F-D
and the exhibition of his paintings. The film, produced by Bruno Monsaingeon,
was a joint effort of French and German TV stations. Nearly two hours long, it
was a lengthy interview with Fischer-Dieskau interspersed with an enormous
variety of performance and rehearsal footage from the mid 1950's to the
present. It was beautifully done and fascinating to watch and listen to. Every
day, a larger number of people showed up to see it. I know, because I saw it
several times. In fact, Clara Schiff kidded me when I admitted that I had seen
it four times. (She had seen it three times.) And it seemed as if just
about everyone who saw it asked whether it was for sale. It wasn't. The
Schubertiade had received a copy of the tape from the producer, and that was
it. This was said regretfully, because they knew they could have sold many
copies of it, had they had them to sell.
It seemed that the exhibition didn't find the same favor
with the public as the film. It was an extensive exhibition, around 40 works
were on display. I take it that most of the viewers had no idea what sort of
painter F-D was and were a bit shocked when they saw what was on display. He
has been painting seriously for about 35 years, and he is by no means what one
would call a "Sunday painter." I don't feel competent to speak to the
artistic quality of what was there, but it was amply clear that the intent was
a serious one. The paintings, with the exception of a few portraits, were
abstract works. A lot of them were very dark in mood, quite angry and violent,
and in many cases had an almost claustrophobic character. Quite a few of them
are labyrinths or have the images covered by a network of white or black lines.
You get the feeling of someone who feels trapped and is struggling to free
himself. Having seen some of his work previously, and being then in the midst
of the biography that suggested that he was someone who felt a great deal of
inner conflict, I didn't find the paintings a surprise, although they were not
very comfortable to look at. Many people, however, seemed quite horrified by
them. I got the impression that what they saw did not correspond to their image
of Fischer-Dieskau and they were actually shocked. I found them very
enlightening, and I began to wonder if the forces that were clearly at work in
the paintings were also present in his approach to music.
On the day before the final concert Andras Schiff reported
that F-D was, indeed, coming back to play. However, he wouldn't be there until
the morning of the concert, so there would be almost no time to rehearse.
"We are in deep shit," he said. In fact, F-D did not arrive
until midday on the day of the concert. One of the Schubertiade staff said that
he had told them that he still didn't feel well and that his wife was even
sicker than he was, so he didn't have anyone to drive him to Feldkirch. Mr.
Nachbauer had proposed to send a car for him, however, so he finally agreed to
come. This did not sound at all promising.
The concert, in honor of the 20th anniversary of the
Schubertiade, was another mixed bag of vocal and instrumental works by
Schubert. Edith Mathis, who had been scheduled to appear, cancelled because she
had bronchitis. Birgid Steinberger took her place, joining Monica Groop, Peter
Schreier, Christian Elsner, Olaf Baer, and Robert Holl in a series of vocal
duets, trios, quartets, and quintets by Schubert. Andras Schiff and Helmut
Deutsch accompanied these, including the "Kantate fuer Irene
Kiesewetter," which had originally been slated to be accompanied by Schiff
and F-D. Peter Schreier spoke the little melodrama "Abschied von der
Erde." And, as promised, Fischer-Dieskau and Andras Schiff played
Schubert's Divertissement a la hongroise. This piece opened the second
half of the concert. The two performers appeared, neither one looking very
happy, and sat down to play. It was pretty bad. F-D played all the notes but
not much more than that, and he looked as if he were trying to disappear behind
Schiff, which was not easy to do. I would guess that a number of people in the
audience could have played the piece better. Finally, it was over. To my
surprise, quite a bit of applause greeted this effort. F-D continued to look
unhappy, and, I am told, after the obligatory bows he went from the stage
directly to his car and left to go home. After the concert, I heard quite a bit
of complaining about what had transpired. "Poor Andras Schiff!" Someone
said. I didn't feel any sympathy for Andras Schiff. I also didn't feel any
sympathy for Fischer-Dieskau. And, after the funny business with the master
class, I felt real anger toward Gerd Nachbauer, who seemed to care about
nothing but how many tickets he could sell. Nevertheless, the two artists in
question had collaborated with him in producing this poor performance. My only
sympathy was directed toward the audience, including myself, who had been
expected to sit through a substandard performance so that a "name"
could sell tickets. It was clear that the whole thing had been considered
something of a "party trick" in the first place. F-D was supposed to
be a pretty good pianist, and he had done similar things previously with
Hartmut Höll
and Daniel Barenboim, but the point was that they were charging money for this
and it should have been cancelled rather than produce something substandard.
Schiff could easily have substituted a solo piece in its place. However, the
dollar--or in this case the Schilling--ruled the day.
Of course, the whole thing was enlightening to me, the FiDi
fan, in another way. Before this occurred, I would have said with no hesitation
that F-D would not have been guilty of such poor judgment. Another illusion
shattered. It seemed he was quite capable of making mistakes. Big ones, too.
Nevertheless, there would be other festivals and other performances.
In 1996, F-D was scheduled to conduct Das Lied von der Erde. Surely
that was a good enough reason to spend another vacation in Austria?
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