This unusual arrangement of the songs created a sense of powerfully continuous drama, though not one as cohesive as a Schubert lieder cycle or an opera plot. And Holzmair injected subtle contrast by inserting Wolf's set of sacred songs into the midst of the secular ones.
I have heard Holzmair many times over the last decade.
If anything, his voice has gained even more in its intensity and sense of compelling magnitude. He tailors these qualities to suit every detail of the texts throughout the broad range of dynamics and emotional colors that make Wolf's music magical and rich, for the composer zooms from song to song (or within a single one) with passion, bitterness or anger to joy or wit.
And Holzmair's approach -- with all his meaningful gestures -- leaves no doubt that the German lied, in its concentrated thrust, even when hushed, is not a French chanson, Italian aria or English air.
He reinforced Wolf's array of moods -- often tinged with Wagnerian chromaticism -- with meaningful dramatic gestures, even as Philipps or Haselboeck were singing.
Phillips was a perfect foil for Holzmair's style, lending an effective stage presence to her rich mezzo sound, at once gleaming and refined. Haselboeck's voice has carrying power along with charm and a delicate assortment of sweet timbres.
Another hero of the evening, Ryan is a veteran accompanist, dashing up and down the keyboard for all Wolf's busy forays into the depths of passion or the throes of wild abandon. Ryan's playing added a full measure of that orchestral dimension that the composer calls for in his complex mix of harmony, melody, texture and poetic meaning.
The festival continues through May 24.
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