From my latest monthly essay in The Critic, out now:
One morning in 2007 I knocked at the door of a Berlin villa and was admitted by staff. I was shown into a music room whose colour was a dark brown. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau was in matching mood. The great Lieder singer had entered a sombre senescence. In our conversation he looked back with regret, not satisfaction. “I achieved too much,” he grumbled. “I left too little for my successors.”
In retrospect, he might have been right. A hundred years since his birth, his art form has faded to the edge of awareness. Classic FM bans Lieder from its broadcasts. No new art-songs are being written by any noted composer. You’d never see a young person take a first date to a Lieder recital unless they’re self-declaring as nerds. The German Lied is uncool….
Continues here.
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