Page 121 - Winterreise Coverage Book, 2021 - 22

Benjamin Appl’s journey of discovery: ‘In Winterreise, you get numerous
signposts and many options of going in a different direction’ (photo: David
Ruano)

Appl’s first encounters with the cycle did not hint at how significant it would come to
be for him. ‘I actually never really listened to it as a young student. I knew certain

songs from it – “Der Lindenbaum”, of course, and the first song too. Most people who
listen to classical music know those, but I’d never really listened to the entire cycle. I

was in awe of this music and was a bit frightened of it, and I didn’t emotionally
connect with it as I did with all those many other Schubert songs I was learning as a

young singer. Winterreise is also one of those pieces that people always say you
need life experience to perform, so very early on that opinion somehow gets planted
in you.’

Scheduled to sing it one weekend, he started learning it only days before, initially on

a car journey, his father driving, from Heidelberg to their home town of Regensburg.
‘It was a four, four-and-a-half-hour drive, and when we arrived, I had one-and-a-half

songs learnt, but I realised I still had 22, 23 more to go! So, each day I sat from 7.30
in the morning till midnight, and I learnt the songs.’ His tried-and-tested method of
getting any song under his skin is to write it out. ‘So, I wrote and wrote and wrote. It