Appl/Baillieu: Lines of Life review – gifted baritone blends Kurtág and Schubert
At the Oxford International Song festival, baritone Benjamin Appl and pianist James Baillieu brought together Schubert songs and short, challenging works by György Kurtág. The recital showed how inventive programming can draw audiences to music from different traditions: the Holywell Music Room was packed, despite the contrasting styles.
Appl’s focused, unforced singing connected Kurtág’s settings of Hölderlin poems with Schubert songs about love, longing and loss. Some Kurtág pieces featured gasps and growls, while others sounded strikingly beautiful; Baillieu’s accompaniment gave the Schubert songs dramatic shape. Appl’s voice occasionally fell short when he softened its tone, but the review describes these moments as rare in an otherwise rewarding performance.
- Appl and Baillieu paired Schubert with Kurtág in Oxford.
- A packed hall heard contrasting styles joined by focused singing.
- Baillieu’s accompaniment helped shape the recital’s emotional arc.
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Schubert was an early 19th-century Austrian composer whose songs set poems about love, longing and loss. György Kurtág is a Hungarian composer born in 1926, known for brief, concentrated works that often make unusual demands on performers.
Benjamin Appl is a German baritone, a singer with a low male voice, and James Baillieu is a British pianist. At the Oxford International Song festival, they performed songs by both composers, including Kurtág’s settings of poems by the German writer Friedrich Hölderlin.
The recital brought together two very different musical styles in the Holywell Music Room, a historic Oxford venue. It offers an example of how a carefully chosen programme can place unfamiliar contemporary music alongside more familiar works and reach a broad audience.