Cheap Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau Sings Bach (BWV. Nos. 56 & 82) (Music) (Johann Sebastian Bach, Helmuth Rilling, Harro Bertz, Hans-Joachim Erhard, Kurt Etzold, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Kaisuke Mogi, Gunther Passin, Hedda Rothweiler, Helmut Veihelmann) Price

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Customer Reviews of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau Sings Bach (BWV. Nos. 56 & 82)

Past him prime but still wonderful
In the good old days of the 1990s, before music companies started recording every Bach cantata in multi-CD sets costing hundreds of dollars, this recording included the marvelous Helmuth Rilling-Arlene Auger collaboration of Bach's Cantata 51, "Jauchet Gott in allen Landen". The late soprano added much luster to her distinguished career with that recording. Combined with the two great baritone cantatas performed by the mature -- some might say overripe -- Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, that old CD (Hannsler 98.855 issued in 1985 and now long out of print) was probably the best Bach CD ever issued for singing and its combination of important works. Fischer-Dieskau was 60 in 1985 and approaching old age. His voice did not have the youthful vigor he projected in his 1956 mono recording of BWV 56 and 82 on DG, nor did it have the mature timbre he used when he again recorded these great works in the 1970s with Karl Richter. But he wasn't exactly dead in this recording, although he continued a pattern of substituting hectoring (never appropriate in Bach) for vocal tricks he could no longer pull off. Even with all these shortcomings, his muscial understanding and voice make this is a treasurable CD. After hearing it the first time, I asked how anyone possibly could sing Cantata 56 the way F-D did it. I later heard Peter Kooy, Mattias Goerne and some other big name singers do it, but never better than Fischer-Dieskau on this CD. His partner, Helmuth Rilling, is as always the model of moderation and consistency. Avoiding the Speedy Gonzales work of autheticists and never treating Bach cantatas like pancakes that require a lot of syrup, Rilling is just as good an interpreter of this music in 2004 as he was in 1974. If God's message is still being delivered through the Bach cantatas, no archangel is closer to his visage than Fish-Dish was when he made this record.