Welcome to the Bachs!

Historically informed performance practice with modern instruments – that was the idea when musicians from the Berliner Philharmoniker and leading specialists from the early music scene joined forces to form the Berliner Barock Solisten in 1995. The launch of the ensemble was an innovative project, since at that time – as Philharmonic violinist Raimar Orlovsky recalls – “early music was not cultivated at all in our orchestra”. But the Berliner Philharmoniker had a first concertmaster, Rainer Kussmaul, who inspired his colleagues with his enthusiasm for Baroque music. The members of the ensemble consciously decided to perform compositions from the 17th and 18th centuries on modern instruments. As a result, they developed their own unmistakable sound, which has since become their trademark. After Rainer Kussmaul retired in 2010, the artistic direction of the Berlin Baroque Soloists was in the hands of various people until 2017, including Bernhard Forck, Daniel Hope and Frank Peter Zimmermann. Since 2018, the ensemble has been led by Reinhard Goebel. The collaboration with this conductor is a “chance to develop performance practice on modern instruments further and redefine it for the music world”, says Raimar Orlovsky.

The Financial Times called Benjamin Appl “the most promising of today’s up-and-coming song recitalists”. The German baritone with “an almost infinite range of colours” (Süddeutsche Zeitung) sang with the Regensburger Domspatzen as a child. He studied at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Munich with Edith Wiens, with whom he continued his studies at the Juilliard School in New York. He then went to the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London, where he studied with Rudolf Piernay, whose former students include such singers as Bryn Terfel, Michael Volle and Hanno Müller-Brachmann. Benjamin Appl was the last student of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, who had a formative influence on him: “He was and is an inspiration – someone who always sought a deeper understanding of music and life.” Benjamin Appl is an exceptionally gifted lieder singer but also appears in oratorios and operatic roles with leading orchestras and early music ensembles. The BBC named him a New Generation Artist, he was a Wigmore Hall Emerging Talent and he was awarded the Orphée d’Or Prix Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau for best lieder recording by the Académie du disque lyrique in Paris. Appl has taught at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama as Professor of German Song since 2016. His discography includes many award-winning recordings, among them a highly acclaimed anthology of cantatas by the Bach family with the Berlin Baroque Soloists and Reinhard Goebel.