Page 112 - Winterreise Coverage Book, 2021 - 22
P. 112
16 February 2022
interview,
Benjamin Appl on Winterreise
by Katherine Cooper
With its fixation on isolation and seemingly endless icy walks, it's perhaps no surprise that
Schubert's great song-cycle is a work which has resonated with performers and listeners alike
over the last couple of particularly bleak winters, with over a dozen new recordings of the piece
appearing since the first lockdowns began in early 2020. Last Friday saw the German baritone
Benjamin Appl join their number for his first project on Alpha Classics, recorded around the
same time as the upcoming film Winter Journey (shot on location in the Swiss Alps and due to be
broadcast on BBC4 next Sunday).
Ahead of his Wigmore Hall performance of Winterreise this coming Friday, I spoke to Benjamin
about his early encounters with the cycle, why he finds it such an 'endlessly rewarding' work,
how his mentor Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau influenced his approach to German song, and the
forthcoming fruits of his new relationship with Alpha...
How did your own ‘Winter Journey’ begin?
I heard one of the songs for the first time when I was in school – a teacher played us one of the
Fischer-Dieskau recordings, and that was actually the reason that I started loving songs. It really
was love at first sight: I didn’t know anything about the cycle, I just fell in love with this piece of
music and how it was communicated so directly on this recording. My very first encounter,
though, was thanks to my grandfather, who’s not musical at all: his singing was always out of
tune, but he sang every day and one of his favourites was ‘Der Lindenbaum’, so I got to know
that more as a folk-song than as high art.
When I started business admin studies and studied singing in parallel, I learned a lot of song-
repertoire but never explored Winterreise – I can’t put my finger on exactly why, but at that stage
I just didn’t really connect with it. Eventually I was asked to sing it in recital, during a very busy
period; I remember my father picking me up on the Sunday evening to drive me to the town
