Classical Music

It’s inevitable. You’re German, you’re a baritone, you’re called Dietrich. There’s no way the comparison won’t be made, serious or light-hearted, encouraging or crushing, with one of the greatest artists of the last 50 years. The incomparable Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau casts a mighty shadow. Dietrich Henschel (born Berlin, thirtysomething, baritone) laughs in good-natured resignation. ‘You learn to live with this fate,’ he admits in his precise if exploratory English. ‘You cope with it. You get annoyed but then there are worse singers to be compared with…’The comparisons started when Henschel was 16. ‘My first recital was in a specialist music school in Nürnberg. We could choose to perform, which we did very passionately.’ He’s attended Fischer-Dieskau’s masterclasses. ‘Every singer has had lessons with him. It’s always worth working with him.’ Feature continues

Evidently. The comparisons have stopped only because Henschel’s established himself as a considerable artist in his own right, whether praised for ‘Byronic looks and body language’ (Observer) or simply ‘one of the greatest things I’ve ever heard in my life’ (Guardian, on his Schubert). Tuesday finds him at the Wigmore, only his third visit, as part of the venue’s Festival of Song strand. ‘A small hall with a fantastic resonance. You hear the sound of your voice and can recognise yourself while singing. You have the feeling of it going out to the audience. One of the most beautiful halls for Lieder in the world.’ He breaks off, shamefacedly. ‘But I’ve never listened to another recital there…’

But he has experienced London’s notoriously inadequate big-scale halls. ‘They all have atmosphere, even the Royal Festival Hall: the design’s odd but it has its special atmosphere.’ Henschel refreshingly plays down acoustics in favour of musicality. ‘I’d prefer a fascinating performance in a hall with atrocious acoustics to a conventional performance in a perfect hall.’

Henschel does admit that being able to ‘hear yourself sing, without feeling the voice in your head, and criticise yourself as you would someone else’ is the great advantage of recording. But the mic ‘has a different sort of reception. What you think suitable for the mic is different from what you feel. It’s another pair of shoes, as we say in German.’ Thinking and feeling… Perhaps it’s blending the two that leads him to his preferred method of recording: live performance, then one session of corrections. ‘Not as perfect technically as working in the studio, but the atmosphere of the concert can be caught. Should there be accidents, you can correct them – or even leave them on the CD.’ He puts recording in its place in terms that would gladden EM Forster. ‘More important, in my point of view, is the atmosphere you create in concert when you’re connected. On record you’re not connected.’