Eichendorff: Lieder 

Composed by Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Franz, Robert Schumann, Aribert Reimann, Hugo Wolf, Alexander von Zemlinsky, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Hans Pfitzner, Othmar Schoeck, Holzmair/Cooper

Philips / 464-991-2

Recorded October 1999 at Eisenstadt, Austria

'Joseph von Eichendorff's evocative poetry redolent of forest depths, love's joys and disappointments, melancholy brooding, and dark night thoughts, inspired countless composers. Baritone Wolfgang Holzmair has put together a lengthy (78-minute) program of songs set to Eichendorff's texts, ranging from the early Romantics to Aribert Reimann, and the results are fascinating. Schumann's Liederkreis is at the center of his explorations, and Holzmair's light, flexible baritone . . . is at its happiest here. . . Nine Eichendorff settings by Hugo Wolf offer different challenges to an interpreter, and Holzmair meets them handily. He's in sync with Wolf's often quirky ironies and sharply drawn vignettes. . . There's more, too: four attractive Mendelssohn songs frame a pair of real finds by Robert Franz, a younger contemporary of Schumann, three nondescript Hans Pfitzner songs, and interesting ones by the young Erich Korngold and Alexander von Zemlinsky. . . Holzmair and his partner Imogen Cooper--a co-equal, not just accompanist--are as comfortable with Reimann's modernism as with Schumann & Co.'s Romantic gestures. The program ends on the high note of Otmar Schoeck's tenderly evocative Nachtruf. A release no lover of Lied should miss.

Dan Davis, Classics Today, March 2003