Concert for Lidice

However, growing up in the Fischer-Dieskau family was not easy for Martin, whose mother, cellist Irmgard Poppen, died in 1963 when he was 12 years old. According to an article in the Toronto Globe and Mail, "Autocracy is a personal issue with Fischer-Dieskau, who had daily experience of it while growing up. His father is renowned baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, who had a Prussian upbringing and a Prussian view if how things ought to be run. 'He was a very strong father and he was always the boss,' he said. Like many sons, he rebelled not by battling his father on his own terms, but by rejecting his authoritarian example." Still, he said in another interview, "in terms of becoming a musical person, and getting to love music, that couldn't have been easier and better than to grow up in this family."

He studied conducting, violin and piano in Vienna, Berlin and Siena. He participated in masterclasses with Franco Ferrara, Seiji Ozawa and Leonard Bernstein. From 1976 to 1977 he was a laureate in the German Music League's National Selection of Young Artists, and in 1978 and 1988 was awarded scholarships by the Leonard Bernstein Fellowship Program at Tanglewood. In the 1978/79 season, he was assistant conductor to Antal Dorati at the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. After positions in Augsburg, Aachen and Hagen, Martin Fischer-Dieskau became principal conductor at Theater Bern in 1991. He was guest conductor at festivals in Helsinki and Granada, and served as artistic director of the 1993 Youth Festival at Bayreuth. He has held a professorship in conducting at the University of the Arts Bremen since 1995. He has produced and hosted his own television series of eleven musical "tours" that were telecast throughout Germany.