The Vanity of All

Baritone Thomas Quasthoff returns to the Concertgebouw

by Mischa Spel

Exactly five years ago, the German master-baritone Thomas Quasthoff scorched the Amsterdam Concertgebouw with a stark performance of Schubert's 'Winterreise'. Tomorrow, he returns to sing there again.

Who attended his performance, will never forget it. In the Grote Zaal of the Concertgebouw, baritone Thomas Quasthoff sang Schubert's Winterreise. The isolation, the despair, the desolate atmosphere of a cooled of surrounding - the cycle was not only sung here, but also really lived through as an authentic experience. Quasthoff turned 'Todesahnung', from the last, frostily rigified Lied, into a personel statement. At least, so it seemed.

This made Thomas Quasthoff (Hildesheim, 1959) smile. "I should be a hypocrite if I were to deny that to me personally Winterreise did not mean anything. It is uncomparable to any other work from the whole of the Lieder art. On the one hand, because the cycle knows an unprecedented depth. On the other hand, because it is so difficult to sustain the tension from the the first to the last (and twenty-fourth) Lied. But it is not as if I approach Winterreise in a fundamentally different way as I do other Lieder. Every Lied I sing must sound significant. It is my job to get that significance across to my audience. At times I succeed, at other times I do not. A concert's magic is unpredictable and difficult to describe. The one thing I am convinced of is that the communication between me as singer and my audience depends on more than 'a beautiful voice'. It is a mixture of charisma, technique, interpretation and empathy. Then, you can only hope for an educated audience."

Even though Quasthoff is very willing and open ("I believe in honesty and naturalness - on stage as well as in everyday life."), it still is very difficult to approach him from afar. Requests for interviews are often rejected. He does not like them. As a permanent teacher at the Detmold conservatory, he passes on his love for the Lied to a young generation of singers. From Berlin to Eugene, Oregon, he personally seduces his concert hall audiences with a voice of exceptional timbre, range and intensity. When Quasthoff sings even the Grote Zaal of the Concertgebouw does not seem as big, and everybody has quickly fogotten that the singer himself stands barely 1.5 metre.

In the documentary Die Stimme by director Michael Harder, which was released last year and devoted to Quasthoff, the singer describes himself in his typical directness. "One metre forty-three, short arms with seven fingers, a big, relatively well-shaped head with pronounced lips and brown eyes. Profession: singer."

Quasthoff does not like to talk about his handicap, caused by thalidomide, a drug against morning sickness, taken by his mother during her pregnancy. When you go deeply into his background, you can read in older interviews that he was institutionalized for some years in his early youth, and after returning home being so glad to be back home that he kept from his mother being bullied at school. That he above everything else wanted to study song at the Hannover conservatory, but was rejected because he would not be able to learn how to play the piano. In Die Stimme, his mother recounts the anecdotes. Whenever possible, she accompanies her son on his concert tours. "The essence of Thomas' artistry ? One day, at arriving home he said : 'Muti, being able to put people under my spell in spite of my handicap, that makes me feel truely happy'."

Quasthoff: "My handicap is not a secret, and it is not as terrible as made out. I abhor it when my personal history is portrayed as the battle of a brave hero against evil forces. At a certain point, people should stop talking about my height. It makes me feel as if I am only partially taken seriously as an artist. For example musicians as Itzhak Perlman or Jeffrey Tate. Does anybody speak about their physical defects ? Their art has made everything else irrelevant."

Extreme attention

This week, Quasthoff is visisting the Netherlands for the occasion of four Lied recitals and one television appearance. He has sung in halls in Utrecht, The Hague and Rotterdam for audiences widely varying in size. His perforamces included, next to Brahms' Vier ernste Gesänge and Lieder by Schubert, some ballads by Carl Loewe. Tomorrow afternoon, he will sing in the Matinee on the so-called Free Saturday an adapted concert bill, including Lieder by Liszt (Petrarca-Sonette), by Ravel (Don Quichotte à Dulcinée) and by Debussy (Ballades de Villon). The ballads by Loewe are a constant on the bill of this concert tour.

"I have always had a partiality for Loewe", tells Quasthoff. "Because of the narrative nature of his ballads, they require extreme attention to vocal colouring. Thanks to that you can really show what you are capable of in those ballads, which is very gratifying for a singer. No musical instrument on the world is capable of such a colouring as the human voice."

"I cherish Brahms' Vier ernste Gesänge in a different way. I grew up with these Lieder, from my musical education with Charlotte Lehmann onwards, I can dream them. And also the biblical passages Brahms has used are close to my heart. But not because I should be a 'deeply religious man', as sometimes is said. What nonsense ! I do believe in human strength. As it is called in the first of the Gesänge: "That is why I have seen that there is no greater good for man than to rejoice in his work, because that is his part." [Ecclesiastes 3:22]. And within that work no one person is more important than another. One can cook well, another can paint charmingly, I just happen to be able to sing beautifully. For me, that is a very essential point to start from. Apart from that, I am also very attached to the last of Vier ernste Gesänge, which deals with the indespensability of belief, hope and love. It is a cliché, but a true cliché. No man can live without love."

Thomas Quasthoff has released nine solo cds in all. One of which, from 1989, was also devoted to Loewe's ballads. It was that recording that led to Quasthoff's first appearance in the Concertgebouw's Vocal Series, now some twelve years ago. Director of the Concertgebouw Martijn Sanders: "I listened to that cd and thought: 'We have got to get that singer as quickly as possible to the Netherlands. We have the new Fischer-Dieskau. I had no idea that he had a handicap'."

"But thank God my voice has undergone tremendous changes since then, and also my interpretation", laughs Quasthoff. "Wouldn't it be terribly depressing if I had not evolved, or if my way of thinking had remained the same ?"

Liszt's Petrarca-Sonette and Brahms' Vier ernste Gesänge can also be found on highly recommended recordings. Quasthoff's flawless diction echoes the time before his break-through, when he worked as a radio broadcaster. Much more penetrating than his flawless pronunciation, large vocal range and precision regarding rhythm and intonation, is Quasthoff's timbre. It seems impossible to remain unmoved by his view on the vanity of All and the love from Vier ernste Gesänge.

Underrated

Quasthoff's opera recordings are rarer than his Lieder and oratorio recordings, since he participated in the substantial project of the recording of Bach by Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart led by Helmut Rilling. One opera recording is devoted to Mozart, this month a second solo record, devoted to romantic German opera arias, was released. Accompanied by the choir and orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin led by Christian Thielemann - recently tipped as possible successor to Riccardo Chailly - Quasthoff sings excerpts from operas that are rarely or never performed in the Netherlands, such as Carl Maria von Weber's Euryanthe and Albert Lortzing's Wildschütz.

Quasthoff: "Lortzing is very much underrated as composer. Last year was his 200th anniversary, and nobody - save an opera house in the former DDR - took any notice. That is ridiculous. Lortzing's music should be regarded as the German counterpart to Rossinian opera buffa. Light, sparkling, humourous ! I really adore it, especially for that reason."

It is remarkable that Quasthoff will wait till next summer to make his first appearance in a scenic opera performance, especially since he is known to have stated once that every Lied should be conceived as a mini-opera. In 2003 he will sing Don Fernando (a small part) in Beethoven's Fidelio at the Salzburger Festspiele. Simon Rattle will conduct and in doing so he will be making his first official appearance as chief conductor for the Berliner Philharmoniker. In 2004 Quasthoff will have his second operatic experience as Amfortas in Wagner's Parsifal at the Wiener Staatsoper, conducted alternately by Rattle, Thielemann and Donald Runnicles. "I am looking forward to it", says Quasthoff. "Simon Rattle told me frankly: 'You have to do this.' His confidence in me has done me a world of good. So why should I fear a performance in which I will be supported by a conductor I consider a friend and by the Berliner Philharmonisches Orchester, which is that good, that I compare our relationship with a relationship of love ? Most singers making their first appearance in opera are forced to debut in a small provincial music hall. But although I very much enjoy to experience all this, I shall never become a true operatic singer. I hold my permanent and by consequence labour-intensive teaching job at Detmold in too high a regard, and I aspire to a maximum of fifty concerts a year. Life should be more than work alone, I also want to have the time to spare to spend with my friends and with my girlfriend."

And we must not forgett jazz - Quasthoff's secret passion that is not as secret anymore by now. From an early age he has sung in a jazz combo. By now, he has his very successful first public appearance as jazz singer already some time behind him. Die Stimme includes a recording of that first concert, and we can see how Quasthoff uses his limitless vocal abilities for sultry jazzy negro spirituals and - unforgettably - a long solo as human beat-box.

"Who knows, someday I might record a cd with jazz songs", laughs Quasthoff. "At this point in time, there are no concrete plans, but I should very much like to do that. And I don't think it so inconceivable that I should find an American label willing to take the risk. When the time is right, it will happen. Nothing happens without reason."

NRC Handelsblad - 1 March 2002
original title: "De ijdelheid van het Al"
translation by Jocy Briessinck