This won’t do for the all-or-nothing people, those who complain of bleeding chunks and defend the inviolable integrity of an operatic masterpiece as they would (in days of old) a woman’s honour. The chunks, at any rate, are sizeable: 15 minutes of Cardillac, 14 of Arabella and so forth. When shorter (Falstaff on honour, Hans Sachs on the state of the world), they come away cleanly, and several of them (the Garden scene from Schumann’s Faust is a striking example) prompt a mental note to return as soon as possible to hear the complete work. What it will do is appeal to that body of opinion that prefers a live recording to a studio product. Among listeners who are of that persuasion, there will perhaps be some who hold Fischer-Dieskau in particular suspicion as being all too much a part of the studio ethos: a cerebral perfectionist rather than what they might call a ‘sincere and spontaneous artist’. On stage there are no retakes and too many immediate urgencies to allow of much cerebration. What they will now have to confront is a Fischer-Dieskau alert and responsive like any other singer in kind but vastly more so in degree, and a singer who puts his art and soul into it.
But how good a singer? These excerpts take him from 1965, aged 40, to December 1992 and the brink of retirement. Most come from the 1970s, at the centre of his career or somewhat to the far side of it. The repertoire is also as punishing as it is rewarding. Those 15 minutes of Cardillac demand fiercely strenuous and sustained declamation. Amfortas, Jokanaan, Falstaff, Barak: all on the first disc are intense and by no means short-winded in utterance. There is never any question that Fischer-Dieskau is a German singer, not simply in language but style and technique. A guttural element that would never be native to an Italian or French singer comes into play, though usually with moderation and always with reason. On the second disc, chronologically the later one, a more emphatic style develops, and the top notes become more rawly and riskily open. Yet there is always likely to come a phrase where tone and style modulate to achieve heart-easing legato and gentleness. And, note, with all this, still no wobble.
My own favourites here are the episodes from Die Meistersinger, supporting the view of his part in the Jochum recording (DG, 10/85) as valid and valuable, despite (and partly because of) its independence of convention. He is also heard, here and in Arabella, in duets with Julia Varady, which is a delight in itself. Sawallisch is the conductor in most excerpts, all of them recordings made at the State Opera in Munich. It is fitting that the last track, the end of Falstaff, should be the finale of a concert given in honour of the conductor who was leaving the house he had served since 1971. Though few at the time were aware of it, they were taking leave of Fischer-Dieskau, too.