Martin Fischer-Dieskau
CONDUCTOR
"We have heard Schubert's C Major Symphony, 'The Great,' several times in recent weeks; Fischer-Dieskau brought such formal unity and meaningful dramaturgy to the work that his interpretation approached the sensational."
MUNICH SYMPHONY
SÜDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG
BIOGRAPHY
Over the years, Martin Fischer-Dieskau has conducted nearly 100 orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, Moscow State Orchestra, Orchestre national de France, the NHK Tokyo, the Tokyo Philharmonic, and the New Japan Philharmonic. He has led all the major orchestras of Germany and Scandinavia, as well as many Italian and Spanish orchestras. A scion of the 19th-century classical music tradition, he adds to this his keen sense and innovative flair for unusual and varied programming. Mr. Fischer-Dieskau spent his early years in the German opera houses in Augsburg, Aachen, Hagen, and Stuttgart, learning his craft from the ground up. As Principal Conductor of the Bern Symphony Orchestra (1990-1994), he conducted a variety of contemporary, Russian, and Italian works. With the Canadian Kitchener-Waterloo (KW) Symphony, where he was Principal Conductor from 2000-2004, he augmented the orchestra’s standard repertoire and opened the concert hall to new audiences. In 2002, with the KW Symphony, he inaugurated the first German-Canadian Festival in Toronto. From 2009-2011, he was Music Director of the Taipei Symphony Orchestra, conducting a wide range of classical and Taiwanese repertoire while organizing an International Puccini symposium. Early in his career, Martin Fischer-Dieskau led productions at the San Carlo Opera House in Naples and the Regio in Turin and became a frequent guest at international festivals, including Helsinki, Granada, and Berlin. In 2013, he followed these commitments with a tour of the German Radio Orchestra featuring Wagner and Verdi. Highlights of the 2015/2016 season were performances with new orchestras in China and Romania, conducting Beethoven’s Ninth. Following seasons included return engagements in Israel, France, The Netherlands, Finland, The Czech Republic, and the United States Mr. Fischer-Dieskau’s earliest success was a production of Haydn’s Il Mondo della Luna in his native Berlin in 1974. Soon afterward, his career was launched by an invitation from Seiji Ozawa to join the prestigious conducting program at the Tanglewood Music Center in 1978, funded by the Leonard Bernstein Scholarship; he had the privilege of attending again a decade later (1988), and then once more, in 1997. Following his first fellowship at Tanglewood, he was chosen by Antal Doráti to become Assistant Conductor at the Detroit Symphony. Martin Fischer-Dieskau’s studies have included conducting, violin, and piano at the Hochschule für Musik in Vienna, the Universität der Künste in Berlin, and the Accademia Chigiana di Siena. He has participated in master classes with Franco Ferrara, Seiji Ozawa, and Leonard Bernstein. To this he added the study of Italian literature and musicology, earning a Ph.D. in 2015 from the Freie Universität Berlin and the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz in Cologne. In addition to recordings for the Marco Polo and BIS labels, Mr. Fischer-Dieskau established his own television series for the German ARD-TV channel for the purpose of introducing young musicians to wider audiences. He has also held a professorship at the Hochschule für Künste in Bremen.
RECORDINGS
Martin Fischer-Dieskau
PRESS ACCLAIM
MUNICH SYMPHONY
“Martin Fischer-Dieskau did not start his career on a vertical takeoff; he did not appear on the scene as a youthful dynamo. Yet the carefully prepared development process of this conductor seems to be paying off. We have heard Schubert’s C Major Symphony, 'The Great,' several times in recent weeks; Fischer-Dieskau brought such formal unity and meaningful dramaturgy to the work that his interpretation approached the sensational.”
SÜDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG
GÜRZENICH-ORCHESTER / COLOGNE
“The Philharmonic is sold-out, the audience is ecstatic. The conductor Martin Fischer-Dieskau is a man who exudes radiant charm. His style is not that of the contemporary young conductors; rather his conducting is precise and detailed right up to the very last eighth note of the spider web. There is much joy to experience in this illumination of the worldly aspects of music.”
KÖLNISCHE RUNDSCHAU
LONDON PHILHARMONIC
" … Theirs was a sober, sensitive and often poetic performance, notably in the opening movement, with the conductor taking note of the character of detail for granted and keeping watchful balance with the pianist ... ”
THE TIMES
HARTFORD SYMPHONY
“ … The centerpiece of the night was the Berlioz Symphonie fantastique, and here the conductor’s strengths were amply on view: expressive hands, a sense of theater and perhaps, most tellingly in this piece, a clear idea of that kind of sound he wanted in each of the work’s five intense and feverish but very different movements ... ”
THE NEW YORK TIMES
ORCHESTRA DEL TEATRO DI SAN CARLO
“Meanwhile, a discovery for all was the conductor who proved to be a most pleasant surprise. An unpleasant affair for San Carlo ended with Martin Fischer-Dieskau’s taking over the podium on short notice. Without resorting to comparisons, I will limit myself to the revelation that the conductor now in charge has an obvious talent which manifested itself in his technique as well as in his ideal understanding. The conducting was always absolutely sure-handed, without unnecessary gestures or exhibitionism: moving, almost loving phrasing, devoid of any misuse of rubato or attempts to be more Viennese than the Viennese.”
IL MATTINO
ORQUESTA CIUDAD DE GRANADA
“And on the podium an experienced Maestro, conducting the entire program from memory, whose last name evokes an illustrious opera personality of our time. His entrance always sure-fire, his gestures unfailingly energetic and secure Martin Fischer-Dieskau drew a maximum performance from the Orquesta Ciudad de Granada which in turn received much deserved acclaim for the lovely soloists and the conductor.”
EL PAÍS
ORCHESTRE PHILHARMONIQUE DE RADIO FRANCE
“The high caliber of the performance is owing, in large part, to the authentic talent of the conductor, who pays tribute to his father, the illustrious German baritone. With smiling ease and natural authority, the maestro imposed his style of conducting, as much with suppleness as with power to call forth a transcendent interpretation of the passionate musical gestures of Russian composer Rheinhold Glière’s first symphony.”
LE MONDE
