Benjamin Appl - Schubert: Winterreise - Gramophone

For the first release of his new relationship with Alpha, baritone Benjamin Appl dives deep into the wintry heart of Schubert’s Winterreise. It’s a cycle – he explains in a booklet note – in which there are infinite interpretative possibilities, no definitive path; indeed, this recording was made shortly after he and his regular accompanist, James Baillieu, made a film of the piece in Switzerland. For the audio-only recording, the pair offer something strikingly intimate, an effect amplified by the fact that both baritone and piano (a distinctive, mellow Bechstein Model D) are closely miked in Alpha’s engineering – not dissimilarly to Georg Nigl’s ‘Vanitas’ recital on the same label (2/21).

It immediately draws one in as a listener.