BENJAMIN APPL : « When I sing lieder, I feel like I am communicating with every single person in the concert hall… »

Hence I started my professional career as an apprentice in a bank, and then gained my degree in business administration. It was because of this that it was not obvious for many years that I would become a musician. But in a way I always felt that I was missing something in life.
Thinking back now, I really appreciate this unconventional path, as not only did I gain insight into another world and learn a lot about business, but I can now fully appreciate how lucky I am to be a musician.

N.M. : You were one of the last students of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. What do you remember of him and his teaching?
B.A. : He was one of the greatest ever living artists and from the first moment I heard him, he was an absolute idol to me.
I met him the first time in a masterclass in 2009. On the final day, he asked me to come to his dressing room and gave me his private contact details. From this moment onwards we worked together for days in his houses in Berlin and Bavaria, ‘til the very end of his life. He was not a teacher who was just focused on technique, but he was more like a mentor, dealing with the approach of music in a fuller and more rounded sense.
I was deeply impressed by his level of preparation, and the seriousness with which he achieved such a deep level of understanding of the music. Every time I went to his home he had prepared himself for our session, looking through the scores again, reading about the poetry and the background of the songs – doing all this even though he had already spent a lifetime on it. But this is also one of the most wonderful aspects of this profession: you never can be too well prepared.
To have had the privilege of working with him is one of the highlights of my career to date. He was a real mentor in many ways and taught me so much, not just vocal technique or interpretation but much more beyond this: he taught me the essence of being a musician, and the responsibilities with which that comes.
The other thing, when you work with someone like him, is that there is always a risk of imitating, to taking everything he says to you as written stone. I was quite lucky I was a bit older than the other students, because I think when you face titans such as him, you need to have a personality already, (knowing what you like, where you want to go), taking advice but being aware you may take a different route afterwards, in order not to lose your own artistic personality.