Forbidden Fruit
Benjamin Appl (baritone), James Baillieu (piano)
rec. 2020, RSI – Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI, Lugano, Switzerland
Sung texts with English and French translations enclosed
Reviewed as download from press preview
Alpha Classics 912 [69]
In the foreword to this issue, Benjamin Appl quotes Ovid: “We are ever striving after what is forbidden, and coveting what is denied us.” In the discussion which follows, concerning the contents of this album, Appl takes us back to the Garden of Eden and the creation of Adam and Eve “as individuals with free will and freedom. They were given only a single restriction: not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge.” Still Eve ate the forbidden fruit, and “from then on, the forbidden fruit has become associated with desire.“
Appl has chosen a good two-dozen songs from various times and genres to illustrate that desire, interspersed with quotations from the bible. As beginning and end, James Baillieu plays Fauré’s In Paradisum from Requiem, originally a choral piece, but here transcribed for piano. Of the songs, many are by established, well-known composers, though not always those most frequently heard. I don’t intend to comment on each of the songs, but primarily to give some background information on some of those lesser-known – and occasionally their composers. Hugo Wolf, Richard Strauss, Robert Schumann and Franz Schubert are reliable, with Lieder from their top-drawers, admirably sung. Rarely has Heidenröslein been performed with such a plethora of delicate nuances, not even by Appl’s teacher Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, to mention just one example. Fanny Hensel is being heard more frequently these days, and the sad Die Nonne is one of her best. Among the French melodies, Hahn’s À Chloris is his masterpiece, while Debussy’s rarely heard La chevelure has a glow and passion one doesn’t associate with this composer. Poulenc almost always has a personal twist, whether it be the exuberant Couplets bachiques or the wry Le serpent. Edvard Grieg is certainly one of the finest song composers, but To a Devil from 1900 is a rarity. It doesn’t sound very Grieg-like to me and it is his only setting of an English text. Arnold Schönberg wrote his eight Brettl-Lieder (Cabaret Songs) that same year, long before he turned to twelve-tone music and atonalism, and Arie aus dem Spiegel von Arcadien is a truly charming slow Viennese waltz. The text is by Emanuel Schikaneder, who 110 years earlier wrote the libretto for Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte. Four years later Robert Quilter set Tennyson’s Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal, which famously was recorded by John McCormack.
Closer in time, in 1928, the Italian Leonello Casucci, wrote his only hit, Schöner Gigolo, armer Gigolo which got its English title Just a Gigolo the next year and became a world hit, recorded by Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby and others in 1931 and later Marlene Dietrich and Louis Prima and lots of well-known and unknown singers. In 1929 Hanns Eisler and Berthold Brecht attacked the criminalization of abortion in the ironic and bitter Die Ballade vom Paragraphen 218, and five years later Kurt Weill, then a refugee in France before he left Europe for the US, composed the opera Marie Galante. The opera was a flop, but the orchestral Tango-Habanera was saved and got a French text the next year, Youkali. Many years later the song, or chanson, was discovered and Teresa Stratas recorded it in 1981 on “The Unknown Kurt Weill”. Since then it has become more or less a standard song. Lothar Brühne was a successful composer of film music, primarily for German UFA, from 1933 until his death in 1958. In 1938 he wrote the score for Blaufuchs with the Swedish prima donna Zarah Leander in the leading female role. The film was a flop, but Ms Leander’s Kann denn Liebe Sünde sein? survived in her recording – which is very good – and here it gets a new lease of life in this delectable programme. The most recent song is the jazz-influenced The Snake by Jake Heggie, one of the foremost present-day composers of vocal music. His first opera, Dead Man Walking, premiered in 2000 has become one of the most played modern operas, and later works have confirmed his greatness. Out of Darkness – An Opera of Survival about the Holocaust, which I reviewed nine years ago (review), is an utterly gripping experience – just as the present album, Forbidden Fruit.
I have written very little about Benjamin Appl’s singing so far, but I can sum it up in a few words: he handles the various genres and styles with unerring feeling and taste and ennobles the more lightweight repertoire without condescension. Vocally, he encompasses all the technical demands and the beauty of tone as well as the dramatic requirements. Besides this, the choice of songs is discriminatingly sensitive. There is not a weak link here and the sum of the parts is even greater than the individual songs. To follow this programme, texts in hand, has been an uplifting experience, and I recommend that you make the same journey.
Göran Forsling
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Contents
ANONYMOUS
1 I will Give my Love an Apple 1’31
PROLOGUE
GABRIEL FAURÉ (1845-1924)
2 In paradisum 1’47
3 THE LORD GOD HAD PLANTED A GARDEN IN EDEN 0’06
IVOR GURNEY (1890-1937)
4 The Apple Orchard 0’48
5 THE LORD GOD TOOK THE MAN AND PUT HIM IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN 0’06
HUGO WOLF (1860-1903)
6 Ganymed 5’15
KURT WEILL (1900-1950)
7 Youkali 2’55
8 IT IS NOT GOOD FOR THE MAN TO BE ALONE 0’04
FRANCIS POULENC (1899-1963)
9 L’Offrande FP 42/6 1’02
10 GARDENS OF PLEASURE 0’04
REYNALDO HAHN (1874-1947)
11 À Chloris 3’10
RICHARD STRAUSS (1864-1949)
12 Das Rosenband Op.36/1 3’02
HUGO WOLF
13 An die Geliebte 3’27
14 ADAM AND HIS WIFE WERE BOTH NAKED, AND THEY FELT NO SHAME 0’07
ROGER QUILTER (1877-1953)
15 Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal Op.3/2 1’59
16 AND THEY BECAME ONE FLESH 0’04
HUGO WOLF
17 Und willst du deinen Liebsten sterben sehen 2’09
CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862-1918)
18 La Chevelure L.90/2 3’33
19 YOU’RE FREE TO EAT FROM ANY TREE IN THE GARDEN 0’05
FRANCIS POULENC
20 Couplets bachiques FP 42/5 1’29
ARNOLD SCHÖNBERG (1874-1951)
21 Arie aus dem Spiegel von Arcadien 3’19
22 THE FRUIT OF THE TREE WAS PLEASING TO THE EYE 1’54
LEONELLO CASUCCI (1885-1975)
Just a Gigolo
EDVARD GRIEG (1843-1907)
23 To a Devil 1’57
24 NOW THE SERPENT WAS MORE CRAFTY THAN ANY OF THE WILD ANIMALS 0’07
FRANCIS POULENC
25 Le Serpent FP 15b/1 0’29
26 BUT OF THE TREE OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL YOU SHALL NOT EAT 0’06
ROBERT SCHUMANN (1810-1856)
27 Lorelei Op.53/2 1’07
28 Frühlingsfahrt Op.45/2 3’00
29 YOU WILL BE LIKE GOD, KNOWING GOOD AND EVIL 0’05
FANNY HENSEL (1805-1847)
30 Die Nonne 2’25
31 SHE TOOK OF ITS FRUIT AND ATE 1’29
LOTHAR BRÜHNE (1900-1958)
Kann denn Liebe Sünde sein
JAKE HEGGIE (*1961)
32 The Snake 3’16
33 THE EYES OF BOTH OF THEM WERE OPENED 0’06
FRANZ SCHUBERT (1797-1828)
34 Heidenröslein D.257 1’36
35 Gretchen am Spinnrade D.118 3’30
HANNS EISLER (1898-1962)
36 Die Ballade vom Paragraphen 218 2’48
37 THE SERPENT TRICKED ME, AND I ATE 0’05
ROBERT SCHUMANN
38 Wer nie sein Brot mit Tränen aß Op.98a/4 2’18
39 HE PLACED CHERUBIM TO GUARD THE WAY TO THE TREE OF LIFE 0’07
GABRIEL FAURÉ
40 In paradisum 1’59
GUSTAV MAHLER (1860-1911)
41 Urlicht
