Holzmair’s voice has a decisive edge that is asserting without sounding unpleasant; it’s a pleasantly familiar bite that serves especially well in the songs that portray bitterness – as in the final line of ‘Blindes Schauen’ […] or in ‘Herr, was trägt der Boden hier’ of the Spanish Songbook. […] As he sings of relinquishment of life in ‘Sterb ich, so hüllt in Blumen meine Glieder’ in the Italian Songbook, Holzmair displays wondrously controlled soft singing to convey a willingness to die for love. Sarcasm spices his fine reading of ‘Geselle, woll’n wir uns in Kutten hüllen’.

Wolfgang Holzmair, Wigmore Hall, London – review

One novelty had been saved for the occasion. The song “Einsamkeit”, D620 – “song” hardly seems the right term, more an entire cycle of songs joined together – lasts almost 20 minutes and is marvellously free and inspired, written when Schubert said he was “without a care in the world”. It is, not surprisingly, a rarity and Holzmair brought his decades of experience to bear as he led the Wigmore audience vividly through its varied terrain.

Wigmore Hall – Wolfgang Holzmair Farewell Concert with Imogen Cooper – Schubert Lieder to texts by Mayrhofer

One assumes it was symbolic that night should have been chosen as the common theme of the four remaining songs. Mayrhofer’s metaphysical teaching can be heard in Die Sternennächte, while Trost portends his suicide. The popularity of Lied eines Schiffers an die DIoskuren is easy to understand. Both artists contributed to the magic hush which characterises it and to the ecstatic exuberance of Auflösung. By this stage I could hear those heady streams of golden sound pealing through the Hall as of yore. Its downbeat ending gave Holzmair the opportunity to stand motionless for several seconds before inviting applause. The audience, by now mesmerised, did as he wished.

Wolfgang Holzmair Farewell Concert – Schubert

Twenty-four years after his 1989 Wigmore Hall recital debut with Gérard Wyss, Wolfgang bade farewell – at least as a recitalist, though other appearances are not ruled out – to the venue with a programme of Schubert songs to texts by Johann Mayrhofer. […] It was only fitting that Holzmair’s recital partner should be Imogen Cooper, their series of performances and recordings having been rightly celebrated for much of the period in which Holzmair has been performing – and, as Holzmair pointed out, in a modest response to the Hall’s closing presentation, he has been professionally performing Lieder for a period half as long again as that which he has in London: quite a career, by any standards. It was a splendidly non-crowd-pleasing programme, one in which attention to text, both musical and verbal, was exemplary throughout, and a moving opportunity once again to hear both that unmistakeably Austrian way with words and that unmistakeable voice, in which a baritone’s range is so tinged with the timbre of a silvery tenor that one has to remind oneself that Holzmair is not actually a tenor. […] Even in a slow-moving song such as Philoktet, both musicians knew how to impart a winning, echt-Schubertian lilt, for instance to Holzmair’s ‘Unterhalt’, relief from the loneliness of Philoctetes without his bow.

Wolfgang Holzmair @ Wigmore Hall, London

So it was all-Schubert (at one stage it was Mahler), and not just a single composer but also a solitary poet, Johann Baptist Mayrhofer (1787-1836). […] Holzmair was joined by Imogen Cooper, their partnership a flowering of 22 years’ duration. Throughout, their meaningful collaboration was palpable, very much singer and pianist working as one, Cooper a masterly Schubertian in her own right (just a few weeks ago she graced Wigmore Hall with compelling accounts of the final three piano sonatas, D958-960), and to intensify what the ear heard during the 16 advertised songs in terms of teamwork, when acknowledging applause the artists always did so together, hand in hand. A dramatic nature-inspired opening to the recital came with ‘Heliopolis II’ (D754), Cooper’s piano sounding from out of the welcoming applause, Holzmair living every syllable both expressively and descriptively. In ‘Philoktet’ (D540), the account was notable for Holzmair’s sustaining of the lyrical line and for Cooper’s sensitive playing.

Perfect Schubertiad from Holzmair and Cooper

Accordingly, Wolfgang Holzmair demonstrated a remarkably expressive range in his interpretations of the selected songs in this programme. He presented each one not simply as a well-turned melody without further significance, but as a lively narrative pulsing with varied, even contradictory aspects. His singing hinted at wider dramatic or operatic dimensions without resorting to any of the concomitant histrionics sometimes found in such larger music dramas. Indeed the character of a Heldentenor sometimes became evident and something of Wolfgang Windgassen’s tone perhaps came through in Holzmair’s singing, particularly at impassioned moments in Aus Heliopolis II or Der entsühnte Orest. Only once did Holzmair seem to reach the limit of his natural range, which was at the end of Freiwilliges Versinken when he sang with a wavering, almost falsetto tone, but quite probably that was no accident on his part, as the poem speaks here of finding oblivion “in weiter Ferne”, and so that timbre caught something of the distance referred to. The phenomenon of dissolution certainly was caught deliberately at the end of Auflösung, to close the programme, by Holzmair’s delivery of the repeated words “Geh’ unter Welt” as nearly spoken, sotto voce, in between exhaustion and rapture. The wide melodic leaps just before that were effortless too. […] From any point of view, this was a masterclass in how to mount the perfect Schubertiad.

Un weekend américain et français au festival „Musique de Chambre à Giverny“

Un autre magnifique duo, Macha Belooussova avec le baryton Wolfgang Holzmair, pendant les deux concerts consacrés à la musique française, et aux chansons de Ravel, Ibert (une mort de Don Quichotte proche de Brel, au début du moins) ou Duparc (une magnifique Invitation au voyage de Baudelaire, plus symboliste que romantique dans sa sobre retenue).

… and I have a special affection for Wolfgang Holzmair (1996), whose deceptively light, poetic touch sets him apart.

Wolfgang Holzmair […] ist primär ein lyrischer Sänger. Als solcher zieht er leise Akzente dem zugespitzten Ausdruck vor, erreicht aber auch so große Wirkung, etwa in ‚Einsamkeit‘, wo die Stürme auch ohne Konsonantenschärfe genügend ‚toben‘.

23 Lieder nahm der Bariton […] auf und verhilft ihnen mit seiner meisterhaft geführten, hellen Stimme sowie seiner Gabe, Wort und Ton zu verschmelzen, zu einer kleinen Renaissance.

His expressing the man’s feelings is naturally done by use of his vocal artistry and his seeming ability to find the right colouring […] Throughout the performance Holzmair illuminates with distinctive inflections, noticeable as one listens to piece after piece (don’t take a break along the way). It is splendidly done as the traveller’s weariness is depicted in the subtlest gradations of tone-colour in the early lines of ‘Das Wirtshaus’, one of the most poignant of the 24 songs in my estimation […] I was gripped.

His expressing the man’s feelings is naturally done by use of his vocal artistry and his seeming ability to find the right colouring […] Throughout the performance Holzmair illuminates with distinctive inflections, noticeable as one listens to piece after piece (don’t take a break along the way). It is splendidly done as the traveller’s weariness is depicted in the subtlest gradations of tone-colour in the early lines of ‘Das Wirtshaus’, one of the most poignant of the 24 songs in my estimation […] I was gripped.

Der österreichische Bariton ist ein gestandener Liedsänger, was er einmal mehr bei dieser überraschenden Begegnung unter Beweis stellte. […]Wie selbstverständlich wechselte Holzmair zwischen den Genres, indem er bruchlos zu Franz Schubert überging und zu ‚Über Wildemann‘ […] und seiner großartigen Interpretation von ‚Das Heimweh‘. Mit vorbildlicher Diktion, guter Verständlichkeit und Einfühlungsvermögen in die unterschiedlichen Erzählsituationen wirkten Holzmair und Spencer stets überzeugend.

Den Österreicher Wolfgang Holzmair einen Liedsänger zu nennen, ist eine grobe Vereinfachung. Treffender wäre die Bezeichnung Ausdruckskünstler. Holzmair gehört zu jenen Musikern, die Texten bis ins Detail nachgehen, die mit Worten malen und immer auf der Suche nach der intensivsten Ausdrucksnuance sind. […] Dass Holzmair derzeit zu den besten Mahler-Interpreten gehört, bewies er nachdrücklich mit acht ausgewählten Liedern aus ‚Des Knaben Wunderhorn‘. Die helle, gleichwohl auch warme Baritonstimme ist zu allen Stimmungswechseln fähig.