Added: Feb 4, 2012

From: 100Singers

Duration: 4:3

Thomas Quasthoff, Bass-Baritone (*1959) Franz Schubert: Erlkönig D. 328, op. 1 Accompanist: Charles Spencer My personal opinion: Thomas Quasthoff in his own words: "On stage, I can´t wear a natty tailcoat. I don´t look impressive. My body is short and plain, and I can´t make impressive gestures without limbs. All that shines in the spotlight is my sweaty skull, and my big mouth, wherefrom the sounds come out. But important is, HOW these sounds come out! If someone looks like the hunchback of Notre-Dame, he might survive only one season as a curiosity. But in the long run, the audience accepts only an artist, when he has something to tell..." The german Bass-Baritone Thomas Quasthoff touched me deeply, when I heard his voice for the first time around the turn of the millennium. A friend played some excerpts from Quasthoffs recording of WINTERREISE and I was moved by the heartfelt emotion and strange melancholy beauty of this voice. I had no idea who the unknown singer was, and then my friend showed me the cover of the CD: A young man with a friendly face pictured in close up. Then my friend told me more about him: The singer, the man, the serious birth defect. The difficulties of his career as a thalidomide victim are easy to imagine. He was not allowed to study music because every student had to play the piano. Thomas Quasthoff decided to study in private lessons. In 1988 at the age of 29 he won an international music competition in Munich - in the jury was a very impressed Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Soon later, Mr. Quasthoff became an acknowledged Lieder singer, and straightway some of his early recordings won important prizes; for example the Grammy Award for his rendition of Mahler's DES KNABEN WUNDERHORN with mezzosoprano Anna Sofie von Otter. The german magazin "Der Tagesspiegel" described him as "The figurehead among new german baritones". The most striking feature of his sonorous voice is the warm sound; pleasant and never sentimental (a flaw in many recordings of Hermann Prey). For me, his singing is sincere. The nature material of Matthias Goerne's voice certainly is of higher quality, but his singing often is marked by a strange monotony. Thomas Quasthoff is no one-dimensional interpreter, anyhow a german reviewer wrote: "In the recording of DICHTERLIEBE he does not illuminate the land of the soul". Still I try to figure out what is probably meant with such a strange statement. Nitpicking? The question is: What is the criterion of music? To bring joy is only one facet. Good music goes deeper, good music (and interpretation) touches the soul, leaves you not impassive. One goes to Fischer-Dieskau for his art of characterisations, not for his art of singing (because his voice was not of exceptional splendour). But one goes to Quasthoff for his art of pure singing because of the emotions he evokes in the listener, an ability given only to a few (immediately Björling comes to my mind, or Kathleen Ferrier or Wunderlich). Thomas Quasthoff once said in an interview, that he dislike intelligent music-making: Music is for the heart, not for the brain. But, so Quasthoff also said, it's important, that every singer is an individualist, recognizable by it's own sound. Quasthoff always was a freethinker, a libertine. "With such a handicap you have no other choice!" he said. He was characterized as stubborn, even uncomfortable (as you can read in his straightforward autobiography DIE STIMME; a book I read with mixed emotions, because many times it is honest and sincere, many times it is embittered and bellicose). As an artist all the greats in music-business accepted Quasthoff without reservations: Abbado, Barenboim, Thielemann and Rattle, who wanted him for his upcoming 2013 production of ZAUBERFLÖTE singing Sarastro. But after more than 30 years singing Quasthoff decided to retire from the concert stage: "My body needs a rest. I owe much to my profession and I go without bitterness!", he ordered his agency to quote him. I think, we owe him our thanks for his art and his courage! At last, here is a hilarious joke, told by Thomas Quasthoff in a german TV-Show: "During a recording-session, Fischer-Dieskau came to Otto Klemperer and said proudly to him: Now I am conducting too! Would you like to hear me, conducting a symphony? Otto Klemperer replied harsh: I´m sorry, I'm otherwise engaged - I must sing WINTERREISE!"

Channel: Music

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