For his second album for Alpha Classics, again with his regular piano partner James Baillieu, the German baritone Benjamin Appl has put together a programme under the title 'Forbidden Fruit'. Musically it ranges widely, taking in songs in English, French and German, and all bound together by a theme, and then grouped under biblical verses. James Jolly caught up with singer and pianist by Zoom – Benjamin Appl in Switzerland and James Baillieu in the UK – to talk about the programme, whether audiences today demand such an approach and how concert-giving has changed since the dark days of the pandemic.
Gramophone Classical Music Podcast