The German baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau was born in Berlin in 1925. After war service he studied with the tenor Georg Walter and made his operatic début as Posa in Don Carlos in 1948. His career soon blossomed internationally with stage appearances in Vienna (1949) and Salzburg (1952). His London début was in Delius’s Eine Messe des Lebens conducted by Beecham in 1951, a year which marked his first recordings in that city.

He sang the rôles of Herald (Lohengrin), Wolfram, Köthner and Amfortas at the Bayreuth Festival during the years 1954-56. His Covent Garden début took place in 1967 as Mandryka in Arabella. His much awaited but delayed portrayal of Hans Sachs took place in Berlin when he was fifty. His operatic repertoire embraced all the principal Italian rôles in addition to the main German ones. It is, however, in Lieder and song that he is probably best remembered. His work in these fields resulted in his becoming the most recorded classical singer of all time. In later years he took up a conducting career, in addition to writing on Schubert, Schumann and the area of Lied in general.