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Quotes about Julius Patzak
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"The tenor Karl Terkal sang at the Vienna State Opera. He had a secure,
brilliant high C, he was never hoarse because he was in good shape vocally,
and he mastered all his roles easily. The problem was that he lacked charisma
and personality. Julius Patzak, on the other hand, didn't have as beautiful
a voice as Terkal, and he had a crippled hand, which he always hid very
skillfully on stage. Still, Patzak made a great career and Terkal didn't.
Patzak was an incomparable evangelist in Bach's passions and a great Palestrina
in Hans Pfitzner's opera, and he himself said: 'If I had a voice like Terkal,
I would never have made a career.' There may be some truth in this. Singers
who have 100 percent of everything in the beginning are always sure of
themselves. They think they are omnipotent and always the best. If singers
have to work to overcome obstacles, they can learn from them and grow."
from: Christa Ludwig, In My Own Voice, New
York: Limelight, 1999. p.175.
"Altogether, it needed a Patzak to shine through this rather mediocre
effort [performance of Fidelio] and to send one home with an unshaken belief
in the necessity of opera."
from: Hans Keller, Opera Magazine, July 1951.
"In my mid-twenties I received a telephone call from the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna informing me that I was to give a Liederabend with Julius Patzak. I discovered fairly soon why I had been chosen. It was a programme that the other Viennese accompanists -- in those days there were still accompanists -- did not wish to play. It contained Janacek's Diary of One who Disappeared, albeit without the soprano songs, Bartok's op. 16 set and selected songs by Brahms and Strauss, including one by Strauss called 'Lied an meinen Sohn' -- which contains millions of notes for the pianist, and very few for the singer. Well -- there were two rehearsals. Patzak sight-read in the first (he was an intelligent man approaching his sixties), and spent most of the second smoking. Nonetheless, we got through it."
from: Me of All People: Alfred Brendel in Conversation with Martin Meyer (Translated by Richard Stokes), Cornell Univ. Press, 2001, p.54.
"That's the difference between you and me: you have a top C
but can't sing it; I haven't, but can."
Remark by Patzak to one
of his colleagues
Created by Roderick L. Sharpe and
Krista Bowers Sharpe. Last changed 3 October 2003.