He later took classical lessons and was "discovered" at age 9 by the late New York City jazz aficionado Charles McWhorter, who saw him play at a festival in Siberia.
Fischer-Dieskau, who died on May 18th, at theage of eighty-six, loomed so large in the world of classical music that he became something like a city monument a statue that no longer fully registers with the crowds hurrying by.