• Thomas Quasthoff’s dark, velvety bass-baritone voice and penetrating intelligence have helped to make him the most talked-about interpreter of German art song since Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau was in his unforgettable prime. So have his deformities. Born in 1959, Quasthoff was one of the ten thousand European children whose pregnant mothers unknowingly took thalidomide, a drug that causes severe birth defects. As a result, he is four feet tall and has no arms, a disability that prevented him from pursuing an academic degree in music in Germany, where conservatory students, even singers, were then required to play the piano. But it didn’t stop him from studying law, taking private voice lessons, winning a major music competition, signing a recording contract by Deutsche Grammophon, and becoming world-famous.
A few years ago Quasthoff wrote a German-language autobiography that has now been updated and translated into English as The Voice: A Memoir (Pantheon, 256 pp., $24.95). It is, not at all surprisingly, a remarkable book, and not merely because of the remarkable story its author has to tell. Quasthoff is bristlingly tough-minded and apparently devoid of self-pity. Here, for instance, is how he describes what he saw in the bathroom mirror on the morning that he made his 1998 New York Philharmonic review:
“Crippled arms and legs, no laughing matter.” That’s how a tabloid paper once put it, but I see the situation differently. Here is a four-foot three-inch concert singer without knee joints, arms, or upper thighs, with only four fingers on the right hand and three on the left. He has a receding hairline, a blond pig head, and a few too many pounds around his hips, and he is in a superb mood. All he needs now is a shave.
How can one fail to be impressed by a man capable of writing a paragraph like that?
But The Voice would be worth reading even if Quasthoff were merely a first-rate singer outfitted the normal quota of limbs, for he is also a witty, sharp-eyed observer of the passing scene who has strong opinions and no inhibitions about sharing them with his readers. Nor are his opinions in any way predictable. Unlike many European artists, for instance, Quasthoff appreciates the “fundamentally democratic casualness” of the American classical-music scene:
What strikes me first is the complete absence of that solemn, respectful murmur that has been flowing around German stages since the days of Goethe and Schiller. Instead one enjoys the relaxed atmosphere, the matter-of-fact attitude with which the Americans have-yes, I will put it this way-made use of their cultural temples….Personally, I view Homo Americanus‘s habit of valuing the classical arts no higher than other forms of intelligent entertainment-whether film or basketball-as a true achievement of civilization. It does not harm the quality and professional appreciation of artists; rather, the opposite is true.
This openness to the cultural implications of the democratic experience undoubtedly arises from the fact that Quasthoff is a passionate fan of all kinds of American music. Not only is The Voice salted with passing references to such unlikely figures as Robert Johnson, the Golden Gate Quartet, Miles Davis and John Fogarty, but Quasthoff’s most recent album for DGG, Watch What Happens, is a collection of English-language pop standards plausibly sung in a jazz-inflected style. One of the funniest anecdotes in the book is the tale of how Quasthoff auditioned for his first voice teacher by singing “Mack the Knife” and “Ave Maria,” then tossing off an imitation of Louis Armstrong “complete with a swinging throat catarrh.” I would have paid to hear that.
