Presto Presents... Benjamin Appl & James Baillieu

Released on Alpha Classics to mark the centenary of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau's birth, Benjamin Appl and James Baillieu's beautifully curated album For Dieter is not so much a straightforward recital as a biography in music, charting the great German baritone's often troubled life and stellar career through an astute selection of music including previously-unrecorded songs by family-members, pieces which Fischer-Dieskau premiered, and of course some of the core Lieder repertoire in which he excelled like few others.

On Tuesday 17th June, Ben and James joined us in-store to tell an abridged version of the story via songs by Wolf, Sinding, Eisler, Loewe, Clara Schumann and Schubert, followed by an informal Q&A session in which Ben discussed how Fischer-Dieskau came into his life, the impact which he had on him as an artist, some of the discoveries which he made in the family archives whilst researching the project - and his most difficult lesson with 'Dieter'...

Q&A