Baritone Banjamin Appl & pianist James Bailieu recently made a return visit to Herbst Theater & San Francisco Performances with their latest program, For Dieter: The Past and the Future: Homage to Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Appl was one of the great lieder singer's final pupils, & considers him a mentor, & he has put together a substantial & rewarding CD set to celebrate his centennial, filled with photographs & information about Fischer-Dieskau & including Appl's renditions of songs associated with different phases of the older baritone's often difficult life. The program at Herbst is similar to that on the recording, but with some differences in arrangement& repertory.
Usually the Herbst stage is, Steinway aside, bare for these recitals, but in this case there was the addition of a stand holding a copy of one of Fischer-Dieskau's self-portraits. Appl & Bailieu both came out, dressed with an unusual formality these days in white tie & tails (though Bailieu was also wearing some stylishly striped socks, though in muted colors). I wondered if the somewhat old-fashioned attire was part of the tribute to a giant of an earlier era.
Between the carefully selected songs, Appl & Bailieu gave us the basic facts of Fischer-Dieskau's life. As he came of age during the Second World War, we obviously start in tumultuous & troubled times; I did not know that he had a disabled brother who was murdered under the Nazi's eugenics policies. Fischer-Dieskau, always a musical child, began singing frequently when he was a prisoner of war in an American-run camp in Italy, after the collapse of the fascist regimes.
Fischer-Dieskau's musical achievements approach the legendary; though I never heard him sing live, his recordings of lieder & opera formed a basic part of my musical self-education. I can't even remember how or where I first heard of him; I just knew that his name on a recording was basically a seal of artistic integrity & therefore the disc would be worth buying & listening to repeatedly. These achievements were, it seems, not mostly mirrored in his private life, which seems to have been marked by depression, self-doubt, & other emotional struggles. He seems to have used such emotions as a spur to keep working & refining his art, though perhaps I should say his arts, as, in addition to singing, he produced an astonishing number of paintings. (Sometimes I think that good time management might be the key skill in life.)
Appl related several of his personal encounters with his mentor, including the last time the two met; I will quote Appl's words from the CD set: "The last time I visited Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in his house on Lake Starnberg was just a few weeks before his death on 18 May 2012; it was important to him to explore Schubert's Hafner-Lieder once again, The themes of these songs include a longing for death, isolation, and reproaches to the gods after a tragic life. He was depressed and his mood was dark; he often fell asleep briefly during the lessons or began to cry. I sensed that this was the last time I would be able to see him."
There were also less somber stories, including one about Appl arriving for a lesson & Fischer-Dieskau coming out to meet him & announcing that he & Julia [Varady, the soprano who was his final wife] had been discussing it at breakfast & they had decided that "Benjamin Appl" was too complicated a name for an international career, & he should now go by "Ben Appl". Appl told us he refrained from responding, "Very well, Mr Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau." What struck me as very amusing about this story was that Fischer-Dieskau's objection was to the younger man's first name, which is fairly common in the English-speaking world & in any case not very difficult, instead of to his last name, which computers struggles with, as it seems to lack the final e necessary for autocorrect's acceptance. People do get hung up on funny things.
Appl sang with a velvety warmth & an attention to meaning that would have given satisfaction to his mentor. The whole recital was clearly sincere & loving & deeply meaningful to the performers, emotions they conveyed to the audience (which thankfully refrained from unnecessary applause that would interrupt the flow of song & anecdote). Most of the pieces were in German, as you might expect, but as we neared the end there was one item in English, the mysterious & evocative setting by Fischer-Dieskau's friend Benjamin Britten of William Blake's Proverb III: "The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship." It's a sentiment that may give some insight into how Fischer-Dieskau managed through life, though the delicately suspenseful, even eerie, music undercuts any possible sense of hearty comradeship.
One interesting bit of information is that the most significant lieder set for the baritone was not Winterreise, as you might expect, but the Brahms Vier ernste Gesänge Opus 121 (Four Serious Songs), a meditative setting of Biblical texts from Ecclesiastes, Sirach, & First Corinthians. (We were given a lovely Der Lindenbaum from Winterreise earlier in the program.)
One significant different between the order of the night's program & that of the CD was the placement of Schubert's An die Musik; this act of profound thanksgiving for the "Blessed Art" opens the recording, but closed the concert. It was preceded by Schubert's Litanei auf das Fest Allerseelen (Litany for all Souls), a prayer for rest for the weary who have passed through life. Together the two songs acted as a summation of the often anguished, always dedicated musician whose art & life we had spent the evening exploring; these two last songs spread over the auditorium like a final benediction. I thought of Larkin's famous lines about the jazz trumpeter Sidney Bechet: "On me your voice falls as they say love should, / Like an enormous yes. . . ."
For the encore, Appl first read a long passage from the diaries of Fischer-Dieskau's wife about his first visit to San Francisco (I think this was in the 1950s), a narration of outward triumph but inward risk & uncertainty, as Fischer-Dieskau suffered a few vocal blips but nonetheless triumphed with critics & audience, though he was distressed & anxious enough to leave the theater while the German Consul was looking for him. The final song was another item in English, the folk song The Foggy, Foggy Dew (I assume in Britten's setting, as tribute to their association). Appl's English diction is remarkable, & his telling rendition of the song was both witty & mournful. I wondered if the choice of that particular piece as the encore was a tribute to the celebrated fogs of San Francisco.
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