Where the key fits: Daniel Behle and his clever "Heimat" CD

Created: 10/18/2022 7:06 p.m

By: Markus Thiel

His home is the sea?

Daniel Behle on the North Sea beach on Amrum.

The tenor was born in Hamburg and lives in Basel.

© Behle

It is a beautiful to delicate topic.

And you can deal with it very intelligently or with a wink - Daniel Behle demonstrates this together with German Hornsound and Mario Adorf on his album "Heimat".

Ministry of Homeland, that is in a way a German low point.

As if what everyone understands differently could be protected.

Because the dark side of the home debate is: exclusion, formation of fronts.

And homelessness doesn't just have to be a chic self-definition of cosmopolitans - it can also be decreed or bad fate, just take a look at the deportation centers that are just being created again.

And all this should also be good for an opera singer's CD?

A resounding yes.

You can even combine seriousness with intelligence and a wink on this complex, homely to sensitive topic.

Daniel Behle demonstrates it, on his 18th solo album, by the way.

The man believes in the CD in a way that ranges from sympathetic to hopelessly optimistic.

And his concept discs, which never point fingers, but look beyond horizons and hear old things in a new way, are proof of how the medium can be saved.

“Heimat” is now heading towards a climax in this series.

Together with the Munich composer and arranger Alexander Krampe, Behle encircles the topic with 39 pieces of evidence that provide at least as many answers to the question: What does home mean anyway?

Between "hunters from Kurpfalz", Eisler and Lohengrin

It can be "a piece of earth, a piece of heaven" as in Mischa Spoliansky's song, the hunter's palace, the "Forests of my childhood" as in Hanns Eisler's setting of Hölderlin, Lohengrin's Grail World or, as Behle put it in a self-written one and -composed song sings: "There, where the key fits" - with his typical joke lines à la "Even in the tipi reserve, peeing is boring".

More of this coming soon in Behle's operetta "Hopfen und Malz", which will premiere in Annaberg-Buchholz in January.

German Hornsound play the arrangements by Alexander Krampe and Daniel Behle.

© Artur Luczak

Something else keeps them from the diffuse hit parade.

All numbers are accompanied by the quartet German Hornsound.

Most of the arrangements are by Krampe.

This is not meant as a sonic punch line party, but rather a careful, meaningful alienation, a musical approach from an unfamiliar perspective.

Some things like Schubert's "Erlkönig" experience a syncopated, jazzy-ironic refraction, "Kommt ein Vogel flew" a modern touch.

"In the morning dew to the mountains" sounds like the "Freischütz" hunters' choir.

And Lohengrin's parade number (which the lyrical Behle sings at more and more opera houses) is suddenly a very intimate, melancholic tale, not a tenoral statement.

It's all sung, just typical Behle, really excellent.

With a supple, easy-going, appealing tenor that can sometimes be ramped up to drama.

Yes, and that's the biggest plus of this double CD: never a single spark of kitsch comes out of the loudspeakers.

Behle takes folksongs disarmingly seriously, creates them thoroughly honestly, without pressure, if necessary with unadulterated, immaculate pathos - and yet always keeps a little something special, like "unspoken" distance.

Above all, however, there is a great sense of style that Behle takes far beyond his comfort zone - other tenors are less likely to dare to say "Heimat" by pop singer Johannes Oerding.

Actor legend Mario Adorf (92) reads the intermediate texts.

© Marcus sleep

There are brief, enlightening explanations by Alexander Krampe for each number.

In general, this is a very elaborate CD with a detailed booklet.

This also shows how this medium can be retained on the market.

Another highlight and coup are the intermediate texts.

They will be read by Mario Adorf.

The 92-year-old legendary actor recites verses by Hölderlin, Grillparzer, Nietzsche and Bettina von Arnim, among others.

With a thoughtful, often youthful tone.

also read

"La fanciulla del west" with Jonas Kaufmann in Munich: Desperado in autumn

"Lucrezia Borgia" at the Bavarian State Opera: necromancy without a ghost

Not only here, but with many musical numbers, things get very serious.

Because in their choice of repertoire, the duo Behle/Krampe also pushes them into tricky areas.

“Our Homeland” by Hans Naumilkat, the FDJ song so popular in the GDR, is included, as is Werner Eisbrenner’s “Song of the Refugees”.

And sometimes it all ties up when Behle edits the Comedian Harmonists' "A new spring will come home", a problematic, sponge-over-march, to Hermann Leopoldi's "Buchenwald-Lied".

Precisely because Behle sings this so naturally, completely un-theatrically and directly, the effect is all the greater.

An album that is one of the most intelligent that was released in 2022.

And that provides the only possible answer to the question "What is homeland?": It all depends.

"Hometown".