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Friday, May 18, 2012

More DFD

Odd ends:
  • Alex Ross excerpts letters from Britten to DFD about the War Requiem, the work itself, and DFD's own words about the premier. His "beloved wife" was Irmgard Poppen, who died tragically following the birth  of their third son. (I am amused at "Peter Pears has agreed to sing the tenor part." I would expect nothing else.)
  • Leo Carey at The New Yorker discusses DFD's art, with illuminating examples.
  • Anthony Tommasini has a fine appreciation in the Times.
  • A guide in clips from the Guardian.
  • A tweet from SF Opera quotes Elisabeth Schwarzkopf saying DFD was a "god who had it all." Neither SFO nor the Met managed to hire him to sing in their houses.
  • Meanwhile, at NPR, here's George Jellinek playing some of DFD's recordings and discussing the singer and his career.

1 comment:

  1. Anyone who takes the time to go through their CD and LP collection may be quite surprised to discover recordings by DFD they didn't know they had. At one time, he seemed to be ecverywhere. The past few days, I've been listening to his 6-CD collection of Brahms Lieder. His only one failure, at least that I'm aware of, was his attempt at recording songs by Charles Ives. The performance suffers from odd English diction. The words all seem to run together. I thought this must be hoe native English speakers must sound to Germans when they try to sing Lieder.

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