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Dietrich Fischer Dieskau Quotes
Page 1 of 2Dietrich Fischer Dieskau
May 28, 1925 -
Nationality: German
Category: Musician
Subcategory: German Musician
|  And what unity is to be had, at a time when orchestras are dying out, and when opera houses are about to close their doors; what's going to come next - when nothing new in music, for the orchestra, is truly lasting: pieces are performed once, and then they're thrown away. | | Many, many composers have only found their way to a certain form, through familiarizing themselves with texts. | | In Romanticism, the main determinant is the mood, the atmosphere. And in that regard, you could also describe Schubert as a Romantic. | | It's not all that different with the orchestra. There are orchestras that seem to be encased in dough, so that first you have to break through the normal routine, and clear out the openings. | | The composition of a single melody is born out of a bit of text, perhaps the first line, but it can also be the entire strophe; it can even be the poem's overall form. | | Admittedly, it is really our duty, as artists, to hold up a mirror to our own era; but, on the other hand, these works have lives of their own, and they're still alive today. | | Unfortunately, it happens all too seldom that you really disappear behind a work, that you are no longer audible as an interpreter. | | Toward the end of his life, one can sense that he was no longer thinking his way into the minds of others, causing them to speak on his behalf, but that he was now speaking for himself. | | But, on the other hand, if Schubert were alive today, he would find even richer fields to plow. | | Which is why, in my lieder concerts, I always strove, when possible, to sing only the works of a single composer, so that the audience could be gradually drawn into a particular creative genius' way of thinking, and could follow him. | | Rather, I believe that it is very good, if, with the aid of his songs, we can be reminded, among other things, of the social conditions under which Schubert had to work. | | Anyone who draws attention to himself as an individual, is viewed with suspicion. We acquired this tendency, of course, from America, and we must resist it: levelling, and imitation of what others are already doing. | | What concerns me, is the general social tendency to enforce a level, above which nothing rises and stands out. | | If you only do little clusters - three or four songs by one, and another, and then yet another - you lose the opportunity to think your way into the composer's mind, since, after all, most of these pieces are quite brief. | | All music has to speak in some form or other. | | With creative people, truly new horizons open up. | | You can't do opera when already from the 10th row you can only see little dolls on the stage. In such an enormous space you can't put much faith in the personal presence of the individual singer, which is reflected in facial expressions, among other things. | | But the thing that will always occupy me the most is music. | | Within each individual young person you meet, you have the same fields to plow. The trick is just to wake thmem up, to sharpen their ears for what's already there in the music. | | The future? Like unwritten books and unborn children, you don't talk about it. |
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