I asked Lucinda for permission to forward the note she wrote to me after Quasthoff's DC recital last night (her first live experience of TQ, after being subjected to five years of my relentless Quasthoffiana) - I found myself sitting in almost the same seat that I was given for the Fleming recital. I remembered her emerald green satin dress, and I remembered the unbelievable beauty, the shiny liquidity of her voice. I wasn't sure what to expect last night. I was afraid I'd be sleepy, since I'd been awake since 4:30 am. But never fear. With his first song (Schubert's "The Singer") Quasthoff had my rapt attention, and never let go after that. All the songs in the first half (except maybe "the singer," and that's a Maybe) had to do with encounters with the supernatural: Der Zwerg (The Gnome), and Schubert's Erlkonig ; Loewe's Der Noeck (no translation, but I'd bet), Lord Olaf, Tom the Rhymer, and Odin's Sea Ride. Quasthoff's voice, his posture, everything about him, lived in the character that spoke (almost all the songs were folk tales). He was a fearful little boy in his father's arms, and he was the father. He was the Queen of Elves, and he was Tom, and both as they rode off through the green woods, as birds sang and the sun shone, "and whenever she pulled on the reins the little bells rang brightly." An enchanted world, and I didn't want to leave it. The second half included Brahm's "Funf Lieder" and "Vier ernste Gesange." All of this, *all* was new to me, you know. And Quasthoff did the same for these very different songs: mesmerize me. He lived in every song, and therefore, so did I. Every word of "Rise, Beloved Shade" still belongs to me, even though I couldn't actually recite it. And "My Heart is Heavy," that too. And then, and then, the bitter depth of the Ecclesiastes texts, and the final song, ending in those great words. I couldn't believe it was the last. Quasthoff sat there, after some of the applause had died down, and repeated them, I was going to say in his own voice, but you know what I mean. "That is true, the truest of true, " he said. "The greatest of these is love." I just looked at that small figure, more distant than I would have preferred, and choked. Perhaps we all did. He only gave us two encores, in spite of what constituted hysterical yelling for Washington: one a Schubert song I didn't catch the name of (it's about a little boy, like me, he said, with a smile) and the other "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot." It was just wonderful, and someone in the crowd yelled "Thank you!" I looked down at the all-important program with the burning words of those songs, indelible now. And I thought of Fleming in her green dress, and you know, I could not recall the name of anything she sang. But Quasthoff, I will always remember. Lucinda Hughes/DC [log in to unmask] Janos Gereben/SF [log in to unmask]