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‘Every number is considered and he takes care to colour his voice to match the mood, generally with success as he sings across five languages.’
As Christmas albums go, this is at the posher end of the spectrum. Benjamin Appl is mainly a Lieder singer and it shows in his varied interpretative delivery. Every number is considered and he takes care to colour his voice to match the mood, generally with success as he sings across five languages.
Appl’s baritone is quite slender but with an underlying warmth – it is a pleasing sound rather than exciting. He is at his best when he keeps things simple, as in the traditional ‘Es werd scho glei dumpa’. After the purity of Reger’s ‘Schlaf, mein Kindelein’ the full-blown kitsch of the orchestra’s onslaught on Christof Israel’s ‘O du fröliche’ comes as rather a shock. Appl does indulge in the habit of blanching his tone to indicate awe or piety, a mannerism that seems to come with the territory and is inevitable in this sort of album. The mawkish virtue signalling of ‘Three Mummers’ by Michael Head is the worst example as it piles on the schmaltz, but the following two arias from Bach’s ‘Christmas Oratorio’ are more forthright and clear the ears.
The Regensburger Dompatzen makes glorious contributions – the choral sound is balanced, sweet but never saccharine – and the Münchner Rundfunkorchester under Florian Helgath adapts impressively to the changing moods. Which does raise the question: who wants Bach followed by ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’? The sound engineering is excellent and personal touches are sweet – Appl sang with the choir as a child, and his mother plays guitar on ‘Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht’, plus it is a generously-filled album with 24 tracks: but, heartfelt though it is, I was really wilting by the final stretch and releasing my inner Grinch.
