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Mezzo-soprano Christa Ludwig began her career singing to American GIs amid the rubble of WW2 Berlin. It was the start of a glittering five-decade journey as one of the most feted singers of her generation. In a candid interview with Tom Service, Ludwig charts her trajectory as a star of opera and lieder, and explains why she now rarely listens to music.

Speaking at her home in Vienna, Ludwig outlines the attributes she believes singers need to succeed, and explains how she came to perform soprano roles - despite always being 鈥渁fraid with the high notes鈥�.

Ludwig describes the 鈥渆rotic鈥� nature of working conductors such as Herbert von Karajan and Leonard Bernstein, as well as reflecting on her disputes with opera director Wieland Wagner.

She talks affectionately about her mother 鈥� also a singer 鈥� whose influence wove a thread through her career, and the difference between singing in the emotional heat of opera and the cool consideration of lieder.

Now in her late 80s, Ludwig explains how she 鈥渓oves silence鈥�, rarely listens to music, and only occasionally turns to Bach, or 鈥渢he last three sonatas by Beethoven or Schubert 鈥� no opera鈥�.

And although she 鈥渨ould never be a singer in my next life鈥�, Ludwig describes how she misses the experience of standing on stage with the 鈥渉uge sound of the orchestra coming over you鈥�.

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Stravinsky wrote his Funeral Song at the age of 26 to mark the death of his teacher, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. The 12-minute piece was performed once, in 1909, at a memorial concert. Then it vanished.

The work was given its first performance in 108 years at the Mariinsky Theatre earlier this month at a concert heard by Stravinsky expert Stephen Walsh. He explains how the piece fits into the composer鈥檚 early output as Music Matters presents recorded extracts of the Funeral Song.

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