Volume 24, Number 13 · August 4, 1977
Follow the Lieder
By Joseph Kerman
Schubert's Songs: A Biographical Study
by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, translated by Kenneth S. Whitton
Knopf, 333 pp., $12.50
The Fischer-Dieskau Book of Lieder
translated by George Bird, translated by Richard Stokes
Knopf, 435 pp., $15.00
Because they are there: that must be one reason why the huge corpus of Schubert songs has proved to be irresistible to a singer like Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. No great performer of today or perhaps any other era has been so fascinated by the sheer extent of the musical repertory available to him. It is claimed that Fischer-Dieskau is the most recorded musician in the classical catalogue, and his most celebrated effort, released in 1970 by DGG, is a monumental collection of more than 450 Schubert songs on twenty-eight discs.[1] This represents about 75 percent of the total number and 85 percent of those suitable for male voice. He has also written a book about Schubert's songs, now published in English, the sort of book that works through the entire corpus and finds at least a few words to say about nearly every member of it. This book seems to have been impelled largely by Fischer-Dieskau's enthusiasm for the manche schöne Perle, as Heine might have put it, which rest in the depths of the Schubert complete edition.
Review, 2478 words
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