Thomas Quasthoff - Lieder

Subject: Guardian interview, Thomas Quasthoff
From: keberoxu
Date: 04 Dec 16 - 10:57 AM

Mudcat is probably going to raise its hackles over an interview and thread about a man who sings classical music. But Thomas Quasthoff is extraordinary in more ways than one.

Thomas Quasthoff interview

Subject: RE: Thomas Quasthoff
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 04 Dec 16 - 12:19 PM

Why would anyone fuss over classical performers? You sell us short, Ms. K.

Subject: RE: Thomas Quasthoff - Lieder
From: keberoxu
Date: 04 Dec 16 - 12:52 PM

For an Austrian online periodical, Quasthoff explained (four years ago, when announcing that he would "retire") that he suffers from hardening of the arteries, and already has three stents in his heart, and this in his mid-50's in age. Up to that point he was a recording artist for the Deutsche Grammophon label, and had a touring concert schedule to compete with that of any able-bodied concert artist of classical music. His retirement followed the death of his (NOT-a-thalidomide-baby) brother with whom he was close all his life. So intense was Quasthoff's grief, that he lost his voice at the time. All the doctors found nothing the matter, so the conclusion was reached that it was a psychic/psychological thing. The crisis was a good excuse for Quasthoff to look at what he was going to do with the rest of his life.

He still has a career, only he isn't running around all over the world anymore. Rather than perform, he teaches, and, it would seem, the students come to him, so he can actually have a home life -- important, since Quasthoff made a late marriage to a lady who already has a daughter.

Why would anyone fuss over classical performers? Only when I introduce them, I guess -- it has happened -- probably my fault.

Subject: RE: Thomas Quasthoff - Lieder
From: leeneia
Date: 04 Dec 16 - 02:51 PM

Thanks for the link, keberoxu. His singing is beautiful.

He seems to sing with the corners of his mouth "tucked in" - as flautists are sometimes told to do. That's interesting.

Subject: RE: Thomas Quasthoff - Lieder
From: Joe Offer
Date: 04 Dec 16 - 05:51 PM

Yes, keberoxu, we have become quite sophisticated and eclectic in our twenty years. During our first year, we had a woman named Elsie who was our self-appointed Folk Police, but she gave up on us. The rest of us realized that most of us like a wide variety of music.

Myself, I'm rather fond of doo-wop, Gregorian Chant, Broadway musicals, and 1970s macho rock. Oh, and Stravinsky.

In-a-gadda-da-vida, baby...

-Joe-

Subject: "Ihr habt sie wohl nicht alle!"
From: keberoxu
Date: 04 Dec 16 - 07:32 PM

My comprehension of German leaves much to be desired. I look at this moment at German interviews, naturally, of Quasthoff. The story is true, he confirms in one interview, that he was contacted about a one-time singing engagement by the last people you would expect: the company that manufactures the proprietary form of thalidomide sold in Germany. As one quickly learns when getting acquainted with this musician, Quasthoff was born a thalidomide-scandal infant, with the full array of the well-known, shocking birth defects. So here was this Big Pharma in Deutschland, inquiring if they could not possibly interest Quasthoff in singing at their corporate Christmas party one year?

Quasthoff's response: "IHR HABT SIE WOHL NICHT ALLE!" Yes, I realize this means NO. It looks like very simple vocabulary, but not the kind I learned from song/Lied lyrics.

So: "you truly don't have all of it." ?
Not dealing with a full deck?    Lost your marbles?    Clueless? (yes, I daresay I must be clueless...)

Subject: RE: Thomas Quasthoff - Lieder
From: leeneia
Date: 04 Dec 16 - 10:51 PM

Heck, I thought this was going to be a thread about singing.

Subject: RE: Thomas Quasthoff - Lieder
From: keberoxu
Date: 05 Dec 16 - 12:13 PM

Insert here the laugh of the melodrama villain. Just you wait.

As a columnist for an online journal -- Die Wahrheit, if I read right -- Michael Quasthoff, the brother of Thomas Quasthoff, wrote a satirical piece called "Der Sumpf des Grauens," describing his introduction, via televised performance, to Franz Schubert's setting of Goethe's "Heidenröslein," and thus to the fine art of the Kunstlied, the German art-song.

Thomas Quasthoff admits, in an interview, that he once made a public performance out of his brother's piece, to the consternation of some old ladies in the audience, and to everyone else's amusement.

Well, I have to tread carefully here. Of course this ought to be shared with the Mudcat Café. However this piece is under copyright, dating back as recently as the year 2006. And though Michael Quasthoff died of lung cancer since, and although the original German can be linked to online, out of respect I wish to avoid infringement of copyright or whatever it is properly called.

I may resort to a sort of abstract in English.

Der Sumpf des Grauens, von Michael Quasthoff

Subject: RE: Thomas Quasthoff - Lieder
From: keberoxu
Date: 05 Dec 16 - 12:14 PM

Oh, yes: the title means "The Swamp of Horrors."

Subject: RE: Thomas Quasthoff - Lieder
From: michaelr
Date: 05 Dec 16 - 06:52 PM

"IHR HABT SIE WOHL NICHT ALLE!"

Your interpretation "Not dealing with a full deck/Lost your marbles" ist korrekt.

Subject: RE: Thomas Quasthoff - Lieder
From: GUEST,keberoxu
Date: 05 Dec 16 - 07:35 PM

Schön Dank.

Subject: RE: Thomas Quasthoff - Lieder
From: GUEST,keberoxu
Date: 18 Jun 18 - 02:22 PM

Currently, in 2018, 58-year-old Thomas Quasthoff has just published a studio album of popular/jazz music singing, with a small ensemble;
the arrangements are suitable for performing in public,
which he is booked to do in Europe.

The mass media hastened to interview Quasthoff,
singing again for the first time since he lost his voice,
after the 2010 death, from cancer,
of his beloved brother Michael Quasthoff.
(Worth noting that Thomas' and Michael's mother
had herself died about a year before Michael did.)

When the journalist commented to Quasthoff on his fervent following of fans
and the high emotion of their response
both to his retirement and to his resumption of singing,
Quasthoff snorted:
"So ein Quatsch!"    I'm not sure that's not ... a little vulgar.

And when the journalist remarked
on Quasthoff's self-deprecating sense of humo[u]r,
this was the response:

"Wenn Sie 58 Jahre mit einer Schwerstbehinderung leben und keinen Humor haben,
dann haben Sie etwas falsch gemacht in ihrem Leben."

If you are 58 years old,
you've lived with a severe disability all your life,
and yet you have no sense of humo[u]r,
then you have done something false in your life.

Subject: RE: Thomas Quasthoff - Lieder
From: michaelr
Date: 18 Jun 18 - 03:18 PM

So ein Quatsch = What nonsense!

Subject: RE: Thomas Quasthoff - Lieder
From: keberoxu
Date: 18 Jun 18 - 10:45 PM

Thanks, michaelr.

Re-reading earlier Quasthoff interviews,
some things get an emotional response from me
which must have been glossed over the first time.

An envious colleague made a point
of insulting Quasthoff when he was,
I gather, in a competition as a younger singer.
Quasthoff placed ahead of this artist.
And the other artist had the [expletive deleted]
to say, to Quasthoff's face, that the latter had something said artist didn't have --
a "Krüppelbonus."

I think that's what it looks like --
a "cripple-bonus."

Quasthoff, always self-deprecating and reliably plain-spoken,
allows that he managed not to lose his temper.
Whew.