| # | Fact |
|---|
| 1 | He was awarded 2 Grammy Awards in 1971 for "Schubert Lieder" and in 1973 for Brahms's "Schone Magelone.". |
| 2 | He was often accompanied by pianist, Gerald Moore. |
| 3 | He was inducted into the Hitler Youth where he was appalled by the officiousness and the brutality. His father died when he was 12 years old. He just finished secondary school and one semester at the Berlin Conservatory when in 1943, he was drafted into the Wehrmacht and assigned to care for the army horses on the Russian Front. During World War II, his family was destroyed and his mentally disabled brother died in a Nazi institution from starvation. |
| 4 | He was born to Dr. Albert Fischer, a classical scholar, and secondary school principal and his second wife, Theodora Klingelhoffer, a schoolteacher. In 1934, his father added the hyphenated Dieskau to the family name. His mother had been a Von Dieskau descended from the Kammerherr Von Dieskau for whom J.S. Bach wrote the "Peasant Cantanta." He was the youngest of three sons. |
| 5 | His mother's apartment in Lichertfelde was bombed and he was allowed home leave to help her. They only had a handcart full of possessions moved to a friend's apartment. He was not sent to Russian front but to Italy with thousands of other German Soldiers. On May 5, 1945, he was captured and imprisoned by the Allies. During this time, he entertained the American Allies and other Prisoners of War. They were so pleased with his music that they kept him until June 1947. He was among the last German soldiers to be repatriated. |
| 6 | At 22 years old after World War II in 1947, he returned to the Berlin Conservatory but he never completed his voice studies. |
| 7 | He sang regularly at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, Germany and appeared frequently in the Opera Houses of Vienna, Austria; Covent Garden in London, England; Salzburg, Austria; and Bayreuth. |
| 8 | He married his childhood sweetheart and cellist, Irmgard Poppen. They had three sons; Mathias Fischer-Dieskau, a stage designer; Martin Fischer-Dieskau, a conductor; and Manuel Fischer-Dieskau, a cellist. She died from complications following Manuel's birth in 1963. |
| 9 | He retired from the opera in 1978 but kept performing until New Year's Day in 1993 when he announced his retirement from the stage. |
| 10 | He recorded in French, Russian, Hebrew and Hungarian. |
| 11 | Recording an astonishing array of repertoire (spanning centuries) as musicologist Alan Blyth asserted, "No singer in our time, or probably any other has managed the range and versatility of repertory achieved by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Opera, Lieder and oratorio in German Italian or English came alike to him, yet he brought to each a precision and individuality that bespoke his perceptive insights into the idiom at hand.". |
| 12 | Fischer-Dieskau was ranked the second greatest singer of the century (after Jussi Björling) by Classic CD (United Kingdom) "Top Singers of the Century" Critics' Poll (June 1999). |
| 13 | The French dubbed him "Le miracle Fischer-Dieskau". |
| 14 | Although his vocal technique was highly accomplished, Fischer-Dieskau's voice was rather light, a lyric-chamber baritone with less-than-overwhelming power. Despite this, he performed and recorded many heavy heroic baritone and bass-baritone operatic roles such as Wotan, Hans Sachs, Amfortas, Telramund, Iago, Macbeth, Scarpia, and Jokanaan though he was perhaps most admired as a singer of Schubert Lieder. |
| 15 | When he was drafted into the Wehrmacht during World War II, in 1943, Fischer-Dieskau had just completed his secondary school studies and one semester at the Berlin Conservatory. He was captured in Italy in 1945 and spent two years as an American prisoner of war. During that time, he sang Lieder in POW camps to homesick German soldiers. |
| 16 | He regularly sold out concert halls all over the world until his retirement at the end of 1992. The precisely articulated accuracy of his performances, in which text and music were presented as equal partners, established standards that endure today. The current widespread interest in German Romantic art song is mainly due to his efforts. Perhaps most admired as a singer of Schubert Lieder, Fischer-Dieskau had, according to critic Joachim Kaiser, only one really serious competitor - himself, as over the decades he set new standards, explored new territories and expressed unanticipated feelings and emotions. |
| 17 | As an opera singer, Fischer-Dieskau performed mainly in Berlin and at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. He also made guest appearances at the Vienna State Opera, at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in London, at the Hamburg State Opera, in Japan, and at the King's Theatre in Edinburgh, during the Edinburgh Festival. His first tour in the United States took place in 1955, when he was 29, with his concert debut in Cincinnati on 15 April (J. S. Bach's Kreuzstab cantata ) and 16 April (Ein Deutsches Requiem). His American Lieder debut, singing Franz Schubert songs, took place in Saint Paul, Minnesota, on 19 April. His New York City debut occurred on 2 May at The Town Hall, where he sang Schubert's song cycle Winterreise without intermission. Both American recitals were accompanied by pianist Gerald Moore. |
| 18 | Awarded the Frankfurt Music Prize in 2001. |
| 19 | He has sung the role of Jesus in no fewer than five recordings of Bach's "St. Matthew Passion". |
| 20 | Especially famous for his recordings of lieder songs by Franz Schubert. |
| 21 | Opera, lieder, cantata and oratorio singer. |
$3 Million
