Benjamin Appl
The last student of the great baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Benjamin Appl has had equally distinguished careers in lieder, opera, and concert music. He is equally at home in modern and historically informed performances.
Appl was born in Regensburg, Bavaria, then in West Germany, in 1982. He began his singing career in the Regensburger Domspatzen, a local boys' cathedral choir with a national and even international reputation. Appl went on to the Munich University of Music and Theater, working with Helmut Deutsch and also earning a business degree in Munich at the same time. Appl rounded out his vocal training at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, studying with Edith Wiens and Rudolf Piernay and working privately with Fischer-Dieskau almost until the baritone's death in 2012. Appl has performed in operas from the mid-Baroque (Purcell's Dido and Aeneas) to contemporary times (Péter Eötvös' Tri Sestri). He enthusiastically performs the standard lieder repertory, but he has also sung vocal works written for him by an unusually large variety of composers, including György Kurtág, Nico Muhly, and Susan Oswell. In 2012, he sang for Pope Benedict XVI at the latter's summer residence, Castel Gandolfo. Appl has received several major awards, including the Schubert Prize in 2012 and the Gramophone Award as New Artist of the Year 2016. His debut album was a song recital, Stunden, Tage, Ewigkeiten, released on the Champs Hill label in 2016.
Appl signed that year with the Sony Classical label and has issued several critically acclaimed albums. These include The Secret Fauré III in 2020. Appl has appeared with leading international orchestras, including the NHK Symphony Orchestra, NDR Radiophilharmonie, and Philadelphia Orchestra, and he is also an established performer with historically oriented ensembles, such as the Akademie für alte Musik, Concerto Köln, and the Stuttgart Bach Collegium. He was also heard on an installment of Hyperion's complete cycle of Brahms songs, Vol. 7, with accompanist Graham Johnson. In 2022, Appl moved to the Alpha label and issued a recording of Schubert's song cycle Die Winterreise, D. 911. That year, he was also heard on albums of orchestral songs by Hugo Wolf and Hans Sommer on, respectively, CPO and PentaTone Classics. In 2023, he released the song recital Forbidden Fruit on Alpha.
© James Manheim /TiVo
Discography
16 album(s) • Sorted by Bestseller
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Schubert: Lieder with Orchestra
Munich Radio Orchestra, Benjamin Appl, Oscar Jockel
Klassiek - Released by BR-Klassik on 6 okt. 2023
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Forbidden Fruit
Klassiek - Released by Alpha Classics on 23 jun. 2023
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Schubert: Winterreise
Klassiek - Released by Alpha Classics on 11 feb. 2022
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Hans Sommer: Orchestral Songs
Benjamin Appl, Mojca Erdmann, Anke Vondung, Mauro Peter, Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Guillermo Garcia Calvo
Klassiek - Released by PentaTone on 4 nov. 2022
24-Bit 48.0 kHz - Stereo -
Wolf: Orchesterlieder & Penthesilea
Benjamin Appl, Jenaer Philharmonie, Simon Gaudenz
Klassiek - Released by CPO on 6 mei 2022
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Schubert - Wigmore Hall Live
Liederen (Duitsland) - Released by Wigmore Hall Live on 29 apr. 2016
Gramophone Editor's Choice16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Die Winterreise, D. 911: I. Gute Nacht
Klassiek - Released by Alpha Classics on 17 dec. 2021
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Bach
Vocale muziek (wereldlijk en religieus) - Released by Sony Classical - Sony Music on 7 sep. 2018
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Heimat (Schubert, Wolf, Brahms, Reger, Grieg, Britten...)
Liederen - Released by Sony Music Classical Local on 10 mrt. 2017
Gramophone AwardGramophone Editor's Choice24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Cantatas of the Bach Family
Benjamin Appl, Christoph Hartmann, Berliner Barock Solisten, Reinhard Goebel
Klassiek - Released by haenssler CLASSIC on 19 jun. 2020
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Stunden, Tage, Ewigkeiten: Heinrich Heine – Lieder
Vocale muziek (wereldlijk en religieus) - Released by Champs Hill Records on 21 jan. 2016
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Wachet! betet! betet! wachet!, BWV 70: X. Seligster Erquickungstag
Klassiek - Released by Sony Classical - Sony Music on 10 aug. 2018
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan, BWV 100: IV. Er ist mein Licht, mein Leben
Klassiek - Released by Sony Classical - Sony Music on 24 aug. 2018
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Brahms: The Complete Songs, Vol. 7
Klassiek - Released by Hyperion on 30 mrt. 2018
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Höchsterwünschtes Freudenfest, BWV 194: III. Was des Höchsten Glanz erfüllt
Klassiek - Released by Sony Classical - Sony Music on 27 jul. 2018
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Brahms: The Complete Songs, Vol. 7
Klassiek - Released by Hyperion on 30 mrt. 2018
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo