Wolfgang Holzmair - Song Recital and Orchestral Concerts

Song Recital and Orchestral Concerts

Holzmair's high, rather light. timbre is particularly suitable for song and in 1989 a highly successful debut at the Wigmore Hall launched his international recital career. His clear and expressive language embedded in a pure legato line, and his dramatic commitment, have been especially commended. The English music critic Alan Blyth was immediately struck by the baritone’s first recording of Schubert's Die Schone Mullerin and remained a firm advocate; more recently Richard Fairman referred to an exceptional ability to communicate the rhythms and meanings of poetry.

He has worked with many pianists of note, a long-standing collaboration with Imogen Cooper being widely admired for its exceptionally close rapport; other partners include Andreas Haefliger and Philippe Cassard as well as dedicated accompanyists Gerard Wyss, Russell Ryan and Roger Vignoles. He also maintains a strong presence in the world of chamber music, where the Trio Wanderer, the Nash Ensemble and the Rachmaninov Trio are among his collaborators. Holzmair regularly appears in major centres in Europe and North America, and also travels to outlying venues where communities have fewer opportunities to hear live recitals. Recent European Music Festivals include Risør, Kuhmo, Lockenhaus, Kyburgiade, the Oxford Lieder Festival and Styriarte, and he has also participated in La Folle Journée's program for bringing classical music to new audiences. In 2010 Holzmair and the Departure Centre for Creative Design in Vienna collaborated in a bid to attract new listeners to lieder, by presenting concerts in which the baritone and 6 compatriots performed Wolf against visual backdrops. The experiment was deemed a success, and was repeated for Mahler’s lieder, with a slightly different cast of singers, in 2011. The Wolf series is now available on 5 DVDs (which use studio recordings, so that the viewer sees the visuals but not the singers).

Holzmair's wide-ranging repertoire includes melodies as well as lieder and extends from the 18th to the 21st century. He has long been committed to bringing to attention the "Entartete" composers who suffered under the Nazi regime and has recorded lieder by Hanns Eisler, Franz Mittler, Erich Zeisl, Ernst Krenek, Franz Schreker and composers from Theresienstadt; in 2010 he joined the Nash Ensemble in a week-end show-casing music by the Theresienstadt composers, at the Wigmore Hall.

He has performed orchestrated lieder with many leading orchestras, as in the 2010 Styriarte Festival; other recent orchestral appearances have been in Britten's War Requiem, Brahms' Deutsches Requiem, Darius Milhaud's Les Choephores and Schumann's Scenes from Faust.