YouSaid · the spoken record

Thomas Quasthoff

lines on the record: 38
first: 2009-02-01
most recent: 2009-02-01
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Song is a kind of saying bye and remembering to my mum with my favourite conductor and very, very close friend Simon Rettle and even I would call even the Berlin phenomenonic a kind of my orchestra and friends because I just did the Sylvester concert knowing that my mother were gonna die and my mother really forced herself through the last dialysis to be able to see this and then we went very early with the train from Berlin to Hanover and six hours later she was dead so she was really waiting to say bye bye to me and I'm very very thankful that I had the time really to thank her for everything which she did.”
2009-02-01 · Desert Island Discs · Thomas Quasthoff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Impossible, so that will be definitely a situation which never happens. To be very honest, my father is now in a situation like being on a so called island alone. He was married to my mother fifty four years, and my mother died this year on the first of january after a long fight against a disease she had a very bad form of etherous sclerosis, and she got even with this disease eighty two, we were all in the wonderful situation that we were surrounding when she was dying, which was very, very moving, and especially for her the last”
2009-02-01 · Desert Island Discs · Thomas Quasthoff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I said, you are the person I will marry. And then my mother got very sick, and we went, of course, like every couple. Strong characters came together through a crisis. Finally the result was that we are now much closer together and much more caring about each other and about the wishes that the other person has. But I was very fast, I'm sorry.”
2009-02-01 · Desert Island Discs · Thomas Quasthoff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, if you have had a life like me travelling permanently round the planet, I saw so many marriages of singer colleagues which didn't work because one part was permanently away that I swore ready to myself if I have a family I really want to be aware that this will not gonna happen I'm in the wonderful situation now really to choose what I want to do and now I'm a little bit more settled saying you know now it's a different part of my life I have a family and I'm responsible for my family and I love to be responsible also for them and of course of teaching if you take the responsibility for young students you have to be there and I want to be there for them”
2009-02-01 · Desert Island Discs · Thomas Quasthoff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, I have artisan residence at the moment at the Barbican Center, including five concerts, and I'm really looking forward to this.”
2009-02-01 · Desert Island Discs · Thomas Quasthoff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The next piece of music is one of my personal favourite pieces Schlumet Ematena from the Bachantata Ichabanuk played by the Berlinbaroque Orchestra Soloists and led by Reiner Kusmal sang by myself. What I see.”
2009-02-01 · Desert Island Discs · Thomas Quasthoff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“While very often the reaction of people seeing me the first time is oh my god and they expect a total frustrated, depressed, helpless little piece of meat, what shall I say? I mean And how would you call if you are permanently unsatisfied? How would you call if you're permanently looking that the neighbor has a new car or Or the nicest, a more nicer garden or a bigger house or more important guests. I don't know. I mean, for me, this is also a kind of disability. I live a very satisfying life. I do, and I'm not looking to others what they have, what I don't have. I'm happy with what I have, and I try to work on this. But family life and to make my well, I've now three girls. I wanted to have a man dog, but my women succeeded, so we have a female dog. So I have three ladies now at home, and my only work is to make them happy.”
2009-02-01 · Desert Island Discs · Thomas Quasthoff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think I'm a very communicating artist, and what I'm always doing even in recitals is I can show them how much fun it is to do it, and that I want to include the audience on my journey, not saying here I am, there you are, now eat this Very often if you do a recital and the intermission is over and one or two persons are coming too late, I'm on stage and I'm moving my head and saying welcome back or you know something which shows oh thank God there's a human being on stage who has fun and not this kind of untouchable classical intellectual sculpture”
2009-02-01 · Desert Island Discs · Thomas Quasthoff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's Chicoria again. It's a wonderful, well played, wonderful composition, romantic, and it's wonderful music to relax. The title is called Love Castle.”
2009-02-01 · Desert Island Discs · Thomas Quasthoff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I No. No, you know when you are twenty two or twenty three, of course you have parties. And of course, I mean, there were not parties where you drink peppermint tea the whole time.”
2009-02-01 · Desert Island Discs · Thomas Quasthoff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, but that's German. I wouldn't say that this is only German. Well, the German can be very rude. I mean the”
2009-02-01 · Desert Island Discs · Thomas Quasthoff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was a member of the university I didn't study really honestly I really enjoyed my life it was really the kind of getting totally independent from my parents which was very important in that time”
2009-02-01 · Desert Island Discs · Thomas Quasthoff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“First of all, to put myself in a position where I am independent and really financially independent, which is, I think, from the point of view now totally right at that point they went very often, very much on my nerves. I mean, I think from a special day on, there's not only love for your parents, they are going on your nerves with their conservative point of view. They wanted to do it.”
2009-02-01 · Desert Island Discs · Thomas Quasthoff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But the problem was especially at that time he was born in nineteen twenty seven. All the theatres were broken, and he came out of a little North German very small village. And he was very satisfied in really to see that I maybe fulfill his dreams that he had.”
2009-02-01 · Desert Island Discs · Thomas Quasthoff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, at the beginning, of course it was very nice that there was definitely no pressure. My father discovered that there is a big talent which should be supported. We found a wonderful teacher Charlotte Liman in Hano And then we worked together for seventeen years,”
2009-02-01 · Desert Island Discs · Thomas Quasthoff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Um ya Geras is the what shall I say the French answer of Fischadiscau he was the Bariton in the sixteenth and seventies and a wonderful singer especially with the French repertoire and I'm a big admirer of his music making and voice.”
2009-02-01 · Desert Island Discs · Thomas Quasthoff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That was one side I think the other side was really this total freedom in improvising over a melody that you have, which is not possible in the classical music. I mean every winteriser that I'm singing on different evenings is not the same, but it's not comparable to jazz. I mean, it's both aspects. It's this political aspect and also the freedom to improvise.”
2009-02-01 · Desert Island Discs · Thomas Quasthoff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, yeah, it's an unfulfilled dream. I mean, he is really one of my absolutely biggest heroes. And from the first moment on this music gave me so much, and I mean, what I loved specially on Stevie Wonder, and maybe you will laugh now, even on the career and history of Mohammed Ali of Kesh's clay, was that there were absolutely outstanding in their profession that they did, and besides of all there were very political people taking a song even from the album is called Living in the City where he is really arguing against the slums. Ali who was clearly against the Vietnam War, and I'm admiring this very, very much because I miss at the moment also in Germany I don't know how it is here, but I miss in Germany. Really people who are going on the street saying you cannot do that. It's not right.”
2009-02-01 · Desert Island Discs · Thomas Quasthoff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“while Stevie wondered what an amazing artist he is. A beautiful voice, great composer I love soul music very much and I mean such a long career he started even in his he was not even twenty and started a big career as a harp player and a singer and if you look he's still in the business he's now going on his sixties I think and he is simply the greatest for me”
2009-02-01 · Desert Island Discs · Thomas Quasthoff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“While at the beginning it was really difficult because of course I mean Claudia and Lotta had a very close relationship. You have to grow also in the position as a father. It doesn't happen from the moment on. But thank God Lotter is really a kind of very, very, very easy going child, and now she is for me like a daughter. And thank God we have a very, very good relationship to her real father. We tried to make it for Lotta as easy as possible. I mean, it's her childhood and we have to take care that she is a happy little girl and not having any kind of problems.”
2009-02-01 · Desert Island Discs · Thomas Quasthoff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, it was very easy, first of all she really encouraged me to let go. I had this kind of fear at the beginning specially of our relationship my wife has no physical disability, so I didn't trust my personality enough that every time when she went out I said okay now she's meeting another man and gone And every time she looked at me and said, Tommy, I didn't marry you because I want to leave you immediately. I love you. So is putting a quality into a relationship which is really very, very beautiful.”
2009-02-01 · Desert Island Discs · Thomas Quasthoff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think my wife has a different opinion about it. Does she? Oh yes, I can I can. I mean before I met my wife and before I was raising a little child, life makes you in some ways hard and honestly my wife changed that in a very smooth but successful way, and I'm much closer now to tears than I was ever before in my life. How do you know?”
2009-02-01 · Desert Island Discs · Thomas Quasthoff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But the problem was at that time nobody really knew how to handle this kind of disabilities. So of course my parents tried to put me on a normal regular school. Every school said no, no, no, no, no, not possible, we cannot do this to the little boy, we cannot do this to the teachers. I went to this boarder school then and I was five years old. The problem was that they didn't separate mental, physical, psyche, disabilities from each other. So I slept the first day. I think two years I was in a bedroom which was really very, very difficult because there were even a lot of children who were screaming in the night and it wasn't very easy. so called to have an easy childhood. But my parents didn't had any other choices, but at the beginning it was really difficult.”
2009-02-01 · Desert Island Discs · Thomas Quasthoff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I'm a big admirer of Mauritio Polini. He's really one of my favourite classical pianists. Second reason is I know him personally very well, and I like him very, very much and Third point, I love China. and this Polones in C sharp is a kind of really forcing and dramatic piece of music and I love it very much so”
2009-02-01 · Desert Island Discs · Thomas Quasthoff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Near my mother played a little bit piano, and my father was the singer. He really studied singing, but I think he didn't have really the what shall I say, the mentality, the first bad review would kill him. So as I always say, you need not only a beautiful voice for this profession, you need also a big thick skin to handle all this. But yeah, music was always a part of my childhood.”
2009-02-01 · Desert Island Discs · Thomas Quasthoff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But the thing was that the real small childhood didn't exist because my foot were standing backwards when I was born, so I was laying in a permanent cast for one and a half year when I was nine month old. I remember that my mother was telling me once that a nurse came to her saying Oh you have a very musical little son. My mother looked at her and said, What are you talking about? He's not even able to talk. Yes, but he's singing all the melodies imitating the words on the right pitch. And so that started very early, and it was very interesting because we had.”
2009-02-01 · Desert Island Discs · Thomas Quasthoff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“and thank God the side effects of the thalidomide disability is In my case only that I have short arms and short legs and life as an artist is unusual in any way, I mean you are travelling a lot and you are meeting really interesting, astonishing, wonderful people, and the rest of my life is well quite normal. I have a very beautiful, wonderful wife, and we are raising a wonderful little child. Yeah, so that's a very normal earthgrounded life. It's clear that we are talking about my disability, but I would not put a kind of fate on my shoulder which doesn't exist.”
2009-02-01 · Desert Island Discs · Thomas Quasthoff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it's one of my favourite pieces out of the Winteris it is Dietrich singing Does Wiltshus the Tavern from Schubert's song cycle the Winteriser accompanied by Gerald Moore?”
2009-02-01 · Desert Island Discs · Thomas Quasthoff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, not that time. No, no, not on that day, but my father called me I think three days later and said, You know, I'm cutting off the telephone because he had, I think, on one day AT telephone calls to take. I had no management at that time, of course. It was a very exciting time.”
2009-02-01 · Desert Island Discs · Thomas Quasthoff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, but they were there when the price list was announced, and I know my father is a pipe smoker. And when they announced that I won the first prize I never saw that before his pipe fall down on the floor. He was shocked.”
2009-02-01 · Desert Island Discs · Thomas Quasthoff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was a very funny year, I mean it was not my first competition, it was my fourth. And I never came out of a competition without any award. So to be honest, I think my inner expectation was maybe higher than I said to other people outside, but the whole experience was very wonderful for the last two rounds, I invited my parents to come to Munich, which was of course very moving because my father was a singer too. And”
2009-02-01 · Desert Island Discs · Thomas Quasthoff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of music No, but this is the wonderful side effect if you're in the musical world. I mean, this is what makes this job so exciting is to spread out with your brain. I mean, I'm listening to James Brown. I'm listening to Ottis Redding. I'm listening to Sarah Vaughan. And, you know, the world is full of big talents.”
2009-02-01 · Desert Island Discs · Thomas Quasthoff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Amazon, Lycam, Palmer, and all these things, and finally we both landed in jazz. and Chicar was of course one of the main protagonists I admired always very much and I loved this recording so much because the melodies are very beautiful it's it's pure wonderful wonderful music to listen to”
2009-02-01 · Desert Island Discs · Thomas Quasthoff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I have a two year older brother, and of course I was starting when I was young with classical music influenced by my father, and then my brother had all this musical development going from de purple over Jethro Tal, I have not to say that because he's very angry about that period”
2009-02-01 · Desert Island Discs · Thomas Quasthoff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of course there were times when the university were saying to me you are not allowed to study music because you have to play an instrument, but it was law at that time, so I did it all privately and I paid every lesson by myself. I had no financial support by state government or anything, and I am now, which is the irony of the whole story that I am now a fixed professor even without studying at the university ever.”
2009-02-01 · Desert Island Discs · Thomas Quasthoff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But it wasn't Schroder I have. I have to say, I think Clinton is not so bad, he's a very musical guy. Yeah, he plays a saxophone. He's a saxophone player. A saxophone playing is very good.”
2009-02-01 · Desert Island Discs · Thomas Quasthoff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Am I right? Yeah, yeah. There was a dinner after that, and then Gertrude turned to me and said Well, we are here in Germany, show them how it goes. So I started to sing and lately we were all singing together. Blair's wife was sitting on his knees, and so it was extremely familiar, very, very nice and very moving.”
2009-02-01 · Desert Island Discs · Thomas Quasthoff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I am a very close friend of Gerhard Schroeder, who was Chancellor for many years, and at that time he was Chancellor. and he invited me to sing for a gala concert for all these people Chirac was there and Tony Blair was there and Bill Clinton was there.”
2009-02-01 · Desert Island Discs · Thomas Quasthoff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source