May 23: Benjamin Appl Honors his Mentor Legendary Baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau with Centenary Tribute Album and Extensive Booklet

Baritone Benjamin Appl Pays Tribute to his Mentor Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
Coinciding with May 2025 Centenary

For Dieter: The Past and The Future
Album + 140-Page CD Booklet by Appl on Fischer-Dieskau

Worldwide Digital Release Date: May 23, 2025
US CD Release Date: June 20, 2025
Alpha Classics

Pre-Save / Listen to Singles: https://lnk.to/ForDieterAr

“Appl’s voice has a burnished, oaky beauty as well as considerable sweetness, while the interpretations are suffused with a gentle intelligence, an instinct for unforced but direct communication and what feels like a real love for the repertoire.” – Gramophone

Review CDs and downloads available upon request.

www.benjaminappl.de | alpha-classics.com

German baritone Benjamin Appl pays tribute to his teacher and mentor, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (1925-2012), with For Dieter: The Past and The Future, to be released by Alpha Classics worldwide digitally on May 23, 2025 and on CD in the US on June 20, 2025, coinciding with Fischer-Dieskau’s centenary on May 28, 2025. Two singles – Heidenröslein from The Singspielsesenheim by Albert Fischer-Dieskau and Nur Wer Die Sehnsucht Kennt, Op. 6/6 from Tchaikovsky’s Six Romances – are available now. Appl’s next performances in North America include For Dieter concerts presented by San Francisco Performances on October 24, 2025 and Carnegie Hall in New York on October 28, 2025, with additional dates to be announced.

The repertoire on this monumental release is structured to reflect the major stages of Fischer-Dieskau’s incredible life and includes compositions by his family members Albert and Klaus Fischer-Dieskau, repertoire he sang as a soldier during World War II and as an American Prisoner of War in Italy, and pieces that were composed especially for him, as well as favourite lieder by Schubert. Appl is joined on the recording by one of his regular collaborators, pianist James Baillieu. ​

The album also includes a 140-page booklet created by Benjamin Appl, which contains a personal narrative written by Appl alongside historical insights and numerous previously unpublished photos and letters, offering a glimpse into who Fischer-Dieskau was as a person, outside of his obvious public successes and accolades. ​

Benjamin Appl’s musical journey began as a young chorister at the renowned Regensburger Domspatzen; he later continued his studies at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München and the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London. Mentored by the legendary Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Appl describes the partnership as, “an invaluable and a hugely formative influence. He [Fischer-Dieskau] is an inspiration – someone who is always searching and seeking a deeper understanding of music and of life. He was a role model for how to prosper as an artist, never just delivering, but each time creating.”

Appl says, “The first time I heard [Fischer-Dieskau’s] voice was at school when I was twelve years old. In 2009, I applied for his master class at the Schubertiade in Schwarzenberg which was the start of a long and transformative relationship. I was fortunate to work with him on my entire repertoire over countless hours in his homes in Berlin and Bavaria.”

In an excerpt from the booklet, Appl writes of the experience working on this project:

I was very nervous when, on 1 September 2009, I went on stage in front of a full audience to work with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau for the first time. After the four-day course he sent for me, gave me his personal contact details and offered me the opportunity to study with him privately. From that moment onwards I had the incredible fortune of working with him on my entire repertoire for countless hours at his homes in Berlin and Berg until just a few weeks before his death. To this day I regard this experience as one of the greatest gifts of my professional life.

It is thanks to curating this 100th anniversary celebratory album and related concerts that I have been able to spend countless hours over the past months and years studying an immense number of his letters, contracts, programmes, diary entries, photo albums and books. These were very personal moments for me, as they brought me closer not only to Fischer-Dieskau the artist but even more so to the man himself; they sharpened my memories of character traits I knew so well and also allowed me to observe new facets of his multi-lavered personality. This project is intended to provide a subjective representation of Fischer-Dieskau as well as to give an insight into the man behind all the great successes and accolades, and onto what moved him and what shaped him as a human being.

About Benjamin Appl: Benjamin Appl’s exclusive partnership with Alpha began with Winterreise which was received to outstanding critical acclaim in 2021, and released in parallel with a film commissioned by BBC 4 which followed Benjamin’s Winter Journey through the Swiss Alps, with Schubert’s music for company. His eclectic second album Forbidden Fruit followed in 2023, then in 2024, The Christmas Album reached number two on the UK Classical Charts – a recording combining traditional German and English carols with the Regensburger Domspatzen and Munich Radio Orchestra. Lines of Life: Schubert & Kurtág (released February 2025) is an album that celebrates the relationship between Benjamin and György Kurtág, in an intimate collection of performances from Kurtág on piano, alongside many of his own compositions. Appl’s latest release For Dieter: The Past and the Future is an equally heartwarming dedication, this time to his longtime mentor and friend, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, celebrating 100 years since his birth.

Benjamin Appl is a recipient of the prestigious Gramophone Young Artist of the Year Award and the title of both BBC New Generation Artist and Echo Rising Star. His career has led him to perform at some of the most prestigious festivals and venues worldwide. In Europe, he appears regularly at London’s Wigmore Hall, Schleswig Holstein, Rheingau, BBC Proms and Edinburgh Festivals, and he has performed at major concert venues including the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Gran Teatre del Liceu Barcelona, Royal Albert Hall and Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, to name but a few. Benjamin enjoys regular recitals stateside including at Carnegie Hall, Boston Celebrity Series, Park Avenue Armory New York, Dallas Opera, San Francisco Performances, and Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival.​

Appl’s profile has led him to enjoy some significant musical partnerships with orchestras across the globe, including Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra/Klaus Mäkelä, Munich Philharmonic/Andrew Manze, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse/Ton Koopman, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra/Andreas Reize, NHK Symphony Orchestra/Paavo Järvi, Philadelphia Orchestra/Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Staatskapelle Dresden/Christian Thielemann, Philharmonia/Maxim Emelyanychev, Vienna Symphony/Karina Canellakis and many others, in repertoire ranging from Bach to Jörg Widmann.

A versatile artist, Appl enjoys performing on the opera stage. His recent and upcoming roles include Guglielmo in Cosí fan tutte, Harlequin in Ariadne auf Naxos, and Papageno in Die Zauberföte.​ www.benjaminappl.com

About James Baillieu: Described by The Daily Telegraph as “in a class of his own,” James Baillieu is one of the leading song and chamber music pianists of his generation, and a Senior Professor at the Royal Academy of Music, alongside a coach for the Jette Parker Young Artist Program at the Royal Opera House. He has given solo and chamber recitals throughout the world and collaborates with a wide range of singers and instrumentalists including Benjamin Appl, Lise Davidsen, the Elias and Heath Quartets, Dame Kiri te Kanawa, and Adam Walker. James has performed at many of the world’s most distinguished music centres including Carnegie Hall, Metropolitan Opera House, Wigmore Hall, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Berlin Konzerthaus, and Vienna Musikverein.​ www.james-baillieu.com

Album Track List & Credits:

For Dieter: The Past and The Future | Benjamin Appl, Baritone & James Baillieu, Piano | Alpha Classics
Release Dates: May 23, 2025 (Digital Worldwide); June 20, 2025 (CD, US)
Recorded: April 27-30, 2024 at Deutschlandfunk Kammermusiksaal, Cologne (Germany)

Prologue

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
[1] An Die Musik, D547 (Schober) [2:50]

Childhood in Berlin

Albert Fischer-Dieskau (1865-1937)
[2] Heidenröslein, From The Singspielsesenheim (Goethe)* [2:36]

Klaus Fischer-Dieskau (1921-1994)
[3] Nocturne I, Op. 1/1 (Excerpt) (Dedicated To Mother)* [1:08]
[4] Wehmut, Op. 3/2 (Goethe)* [2:30]

Teenage Years and First Steps as a Singer

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
[5] Wie Bist Du, Meine Königin, Op. 32/9 (Daumer) [3:57]

A Soldier in War 1943-1945

Hugo Wolf (1860-1903)
[6] Andenken (Matthisson) [2:20]

Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957)
[7] Liebesbriefchen, Op. 9/4 (Honold) [2:29]

Franz Schubert
[8] Strophe Aus “die Götter Griechenlands”, D677 (Schiller) [4:32]

Aribert Reimann (1936-2024)
[9] Tenebrae (Celan) [3:15]

A Prisoner Of War 1945-1947

Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
[10] Schöner Abend, L. 84 (Bourget/Fischer-Dieskau) [2:29]

Christian Sinding (1856-1941)
[11] Sylvelin, Op. 55/1 (Vislie/Henzen) [1:42]

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
[12] Nur Wer Die Sehnsucht Kennt, Op. 6/6 (Goethe) [3:13]

Eduard Künneke(1885-1953)
[13] Ich Bin Nur Ein Armer Wandergesell (Haller/Rideamus) 1:39

Returning Home In 1947

Fanny Hensel (1805-1847)
[14] Ach, Die Augen Sind Es Wieder (Heine) 1:23

Hanns Eisler (1898-1962)
[15] Die Heimkehr (Brecht) [1:42]

Klaus Fischer-Dieskau (1921-1994)
[16] Aus Schmerzen Und Freuden Geboren, Op. 22/1 (Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau)* [2:28]

Birth of Three Sons

Bruno Walter (1876-1962)
[17] Des Kindes Schlaf (Eichendorff) [1:57]

Song Accompanists and Friends

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
[18] An Mein Klavier, D342 (Schubert) [4:04]

Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)
[19] Proverb III, From Songs and Proverbs of William Blake, Op. 74 (Blake) 0:57

The Bitter Loss of Irmel, His First Wife In 1963

Carl Loewe (1796-1869)
[20] Süßes Begräbnis, Op. 62/4 (Rückert) [2:56]

Death of His Mother Theodora In 1966

Hanns Eisler (1898-1962)
[21] Mutterns Hände (Tucholsky) [2:07]

Marital Life
(Ruth Leuwerik 1965-1967, Kristina Pugell 1968-1975, Julia Varady 1977-2012)

Franz Grothe (1908-1982)
[22] Excerpt From Music For The Film: Vater Braucht Eine Frau [1:26]

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
[23] Liebhaber In Allen Gestalten, D558 (Goethe) [1:38]

Clara Schumann(1819-1896)
[24] Liebst Du Um Schönheit, Op. 12/2 (Rückert) [2:13]

Commissions and World Premieres

Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)
[25] Hörnersang, Op. 66 from War Requiem (Owen/Fischer-Dieskau) [2:49]

Samuel Barber (1910-1981)
Three Songs, Op. 45 (1974)
[26] Now I Have Fed and Eaten Up the Rose (Keller/Joyce) [1:59]
[27] A Green Lowland of Pianos (Harsymowicz/Miłosz) [2:15]
[28] O Boundless, Boundless Evening (Heym/Middleton) [3:04]

Teaching and Personal Experiences

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
[29] An die Laute, D905 (Rochlitz) [1:36]

Hugo Wolf (1860-1903)
[30] Sterb’ ich, so hüllt in Blumen meine Glieder (Heyse) [2:39]

Farewell To Stage

Carl Maria Von Weber (1786-1826)|
[31] Meine Lieder, meine Sänge, Op. 15/1 (Löwenstein-Werthheim) [2:58]

Epilogue

Robert Schumann (1810-1856)
[32] Requiem, Op. 90/7 (Dreves) [3:51]

Total Time: 79:00

* World premiere recording

A co-production between Benjamin Appl, Deutschlandradio & Alpha Classics / Outhere Music France 2025
Alpha Classics Director: Didier Martin
Executive Producer: Mascha Drost (Dlfkultur)
Recording Producer: Michael Havenstein
Sound Engineer: Eva Pöpplein
Production: Louise Burel
Editorial coordination: Amélie Boccon-Gibod
French Adaptation: Claire Boisteau
English Translation: Peter Lockwood
Design & Artwork: Valérie Lagarde
Front Cover, Back Cover & Inside Photos (pp. 27, 53, 81, 109, 140): David Ruano
Front Cover: Selbst (dispersion, 75cmx75cm), 1985
p.27: Grunewaldsee (oil, 80cmx60cm), 1961, p.109: Luzern (ink, 15cmx21cm), 1979, p. 140: Selbst (dispersion, 75cmx75cm), 1985
Back Cover: Weg nach Münsing (acrylic/dispersion, 50cmx60cm), 1984

Baritone Benjamin Appl Embarks on North American Concert Tour Culminating with Carnegie Hall Debut on May 20

Baritone Benjamin Appl Embarks on North American Concert Tour in
May 2023 Culminating with Carnegie Hall Debut on May 20

"the way he navigated the song’s transformation, from disappointment to obsession, was so gripping and troublingly real, I heard people all around me exhale afterward, as if Mr. Appl had rendered them breathless."
– The New York Times

“In dynastic terms the young German baritone Benjamin Appl is Lieder royalty.”
– The Spectator

“the current front-runner in the new generation of Lieder singers”
- Gramophone

Tour Details:
May 2: Linfield Lively Arts (McMinnville, OR)
May 4: Friends of Chamber Music Portland (Portland, OR)
May 7: Vancouver Recital Society (Vancouver, BC)
May 10: San Francisco Performances (San Francisco, CA)
May 14: Cranbrook Music Guild (Bloomfield Hills, MI)
May 20: Carnegie Hall Debut (New York, NY)

Benjamin Appl Online: www.benjaminappl.de

New York, NY – Baritone Benjamin Appl, hailed by The Financial Times as, “the most promising of today’s up-and-coming song recitalists,” embarks on a North American tour from May 2-20, 2023 and will perform with pianist James Baillieu in Portland, OR (May 2, Linfield Lively Arts; May 4, Friends of Chamber Music Portland); Vancouver, BC (May 7, Vancouver Recital Society); San Francisco, CA (May 10, San Francisco Performances); and Bloomfield Hills, MI (May 14, Cranbrook Music Guild); concluding his tour with his Carnegie Hall Weill Recital Hall debut in New York on May 20. 

Mentored by one of the greatest singers of the twentieth century, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Appl is  celebrated by audiences and critics alike for a voice that “belongs to the last of the old great masters of song” with “an almost infinite range of colours” (Suddeutsche Zeitung), “exacting attention to text” (The New York Times), and artistry that’s described as “unbearably moving” (The Times). 

Named Gramophone Award Young Artist of the Year in 2016, Appl was a member of the BBC New Generation Artist scheme from 2014-16, as well as a Wigmore Hall Emerging Artist and ECHO Rising Star for the 2015-16 season, appearing at major venues throughout Europe, including the Barbican Centre London, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Wiener Konzerthaus, Philharmonie Paris and Cologne and the Laeiszhalle Hamburg. He was signed exclusively to SONY Classical between 2016 and 2021, and has recently partnered with Alpha Classics for a long-term collaboration on multiple albums. His first album for Alpha Classics, released last year, features Schubert’s Winterreise. Other recent recordings include the orchestral songs of Hans Sommer with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin and of Hugo Wolf with the Jenaer Philharmonie, also released in 2022.

Appl is dedicated to drawing connections for contemporary audiences to the Lieder tradition, often sharing with audiences personal sources of inspiration during his performances. “In a manner that is unusual for classical music,” reports The Financial Times, “Appl has woven the backstory into his concerts – introducing Richard Strauss’ ‘Allerseelen,’ for instance, as an homage to the two grandparents he lost a few years ago, or prefacing the English songs with a recollection of the disorientation and exhilaration he felt after first moving to London.”

In recent years, Appl has also worked beyond the concert stage, presenting a series of programs for BBC Radio 3 entitled “A Singer’s World,” and starring in the film Breaking Music, which celebrates both the Argentinian Tango and German Lied traditions by breaking down the traditional boundaries between musical genres. During the 2021-22 season, Appl took part in an exciting new realization of Schubert’s Winterreise, which was filmed in the Swiss Alps in November 2021. Commissioned by the BBC and Swiss television station SRF, and directed by John Bridcut, the film was first broadcast on BBC4 in early 2022, coinciding with the release of Appl’s recording of Winterreise on Alpha Classics. This season, Appl is Artist in Residence at London’s St. Martin in the Fields giving multiple recitals throughout the year, including a collaboration with Holocaust survivor Éva Fahidi in a recital and talk exploring the loss of family, identity, memory, and rediscovered hope.

For his North American tour, Appl will present Nocturne, a program exploring a nighttime journey with selections arranged according to facets of the night – romance, the moon, stars, nightmares, fancies, insomnia, dreams, the darkest hour, and finally morning. As part of the program’s darkest hour section, Appl will perform two pieces by Ilse Weber, a Czech composer and poet who was imprisoned with her family in Theresienstadt and later killed with her young son in Auschwitz. Nocturne also includes music by Schubert, Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Grieg, Wolf, William Bolcom, James MacMillan, and many more.

Of the program, Benjamin Appl writes:

Assisted by music and poetry, we walk through the night, beginning with the evening hours, where we indulge in romance and longing, and where the stars and the moon become our companions. Shrouded in myths and legends, they then become our partner to reflect our innermost feelings and passions in songs by Schubert, Vaughan Willliams and Somervell. Unnerving events and vivid nightmares form the backbone of Schumann’s cruel ballad of King Belshazzar, Schubert’s frightening masterpiece Erlkönig as well as in the bizarre Ballad of Black Max by William Bolcom. Phantasies and dreams put to music by Quilter, Gurney Wolf and Grieg, enrich our imagination.

As someone who was born and raised in Germany, it is utterly important for me to come and perform songs written in the concentration camp of Theresienstadt, here in the United States of America. During the time of Nazi Germany, this camp was known for imprisoning, torturing, and killing so many people, in particular, many creative people. In this, our darkest hour of human history, people retreated into themselves to write music as an escape from the real, inhuman, evil world around them. One of the prisoners there was Ilse Weber, a children’s nurse, who shared her own compositions with the children in Theresienstadt, and where she accompanied the young on her guitar whilst singing together. After her deportation to the death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau she made the decision to go with the children into the gas chambers. Witnesses afterwards told that they could hear her and the children singing her lullaby Wiegala, when the doors were shut behind them.

Strauss’ Morgen gives us hope for a better, more peaceful future, where we all encounter each other with more respect and understanding. A night gives everyone of us a chance of a new morning: a new and better beginning.

More about Benjamin Appl: 

Benjamin Appl started in music as a young chorister at the renowned Regensburger Domspatzen, later continuing his studies at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München and eventually at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London. He had the good fortune of being mentored by the legendary singer Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Appl says, “my years of working with Fischer-Dieskau were invaluable and had a hugely formative influence on me. He is an inspiration – someone who is always searching and seeking a deeper understanding of music and of life. He was a role model for how to prosper as an artist, never just delivering, but each time creating.” Appl also enjoys a significant long-term collaboration with composer György Kurtág.

An established recitalist, Appl has performed at the Ravinia, Rheingau, Schleswig Holstein, Edinburgh International, and Oxford Lieder festivals; Schubertiade Schwarzenberg and at the KlavierFestival Ruhr. He has performed at major concert venues including Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Konzerthaus Berlin and Vienna, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg and Musée de Louvre Paris, in addition to which he is a regular recitalist at Wigmore Hall and at Heidelberger Frühling. In equal demand as soloist on the world’s most prestigious stages, he collaborates with NHK Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Staatskapelle Dresden, Philharmonia, Seattle Symphony, Vienna Symphony and many others.

In addition to this North American tour, Appl’s 2022-23 season includes orchestral concerts with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra conducted by Klaus Mäkelä and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic in Mozart’s Requiem; NDR Hannover with Andrew Manze and Orchestre Pays de Loire in Brahms’ Requiem; Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Thomas Søndergård in Britten’s War Requiem; La Verdi Orchestra Milan in Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder; and Zurich Chamber Orchestra’s prestigious New Year’s Gala. A revered interpreter of period music, Appl looks forward to collaborations with Les Talens Lyriques on a solo Mozart tour and in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with Christophe Rousset; a recital with Ensemble Masques at BOZAR Brussels, further Bach programmes with the Berliner Barocksolisten and his debut appearance with the Gabetta Ensemble in Budapest. In addition, he looks forward to revisiting successful collaborations with lutenist Thomas Dunford in Bonn, Schleswig Holstein and Oxford Lieder Festivals; with pianist Alice Sara Ott at London’s Southbank Centre; with accordionist Martynas in Heidelberg, Mecklenburg Vorpommern, and with pianist James Baillieu at Festival St. Denis.

Appl’s growing discography includes Schumann duets with Ann Murray (DBE), accompanied by Malcolm Martineau; his debut solo disc Stunden, Tage, Ewigkeiten accompanied by James Baillieu, which was released in April 2016 on Champs Hill records; and a live recording of Schubert lieder with Graham Johnson for the Wigmore Hall Live label. His first solo album for Sony Classical, Heimat, was Gramophone nominated and won the prestigious Prix Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (Best Lieder Singer) at the 2017-18 Académie du Disque Lyrique Orphées d’Or. Other recent recordings include an album of Bach with Concerto Köln as well as Sibelius’s Kullervowith the BBC Scottish Symphony and Thomas Dausgaard for Hyperion Records.