Wolfgang Holzmair; Maria Belooussova - Chansons Francaises

A BRAND NEW RECORDING FROM WOLFGANG HOLZMAIR.�For me,� Wolfgang Holzmair once remarked, �the song is a continuation of speech � a higher form of expressing words and thoughts.� Over the course of three decades, the Austrian baritone has been true to his own belief in a stream of recitals and recordings of the Lieder, chanson and art-song repertoire. As recently as 2012 his album of Mahler�s songs from Des knaben Wunderhorn was welcomed in Gramophone for his superb word-painting, �replacing sheer vocal power with more Lieder-friendly qualities of agility, precision and nuance. Poetic narrative is everywhere apparent.�Such qualities lend distinction to his brand new album of �Chansons fran�aises� released on Eloquence. Recorded in Vienna in 2012, Holzmair is partnered here by the Russian pianist Maria Belooussova, who specialised in chamber-music partnerships with renowned instrumentalists and singers, among them Ivry Gitlis and Joseph Silverstein. Holzmair�s personal selection focuses on the high-noon of the French art-song tradition in the latter half of the nineteenth century and early decades of the twentieth, moving between the exquisite melancholy of Th�ophile Gautier as set by Berlioz (in Les Nuits d��t�) and Duparc, and the pastis-dry wit of Alexandre Arnoux, who found his musical match in Jacques Ibert (Chansons de Don Quichotte). Holzmair also encompasses the visionary sensibility of Faure in L�Horizon chim�rique, the sinuous opulence of Ernest Chausson (setting Gautier again in Les Papillons) and the folky simplicity of the Trois chansons de France by Debussy. Alongside an undoubted high-point in the entire French song repertoire (Ravel�s last completed work, Don Quichotte � Dulcin�e), Holzmair has also unearthed a genuine rarity in the person of Eug�ne Anthiome (1836�1916), whose two songs recorded here for the first time belong to the Parisian salon, sweet and suave in the manner of Reynaldo Hahn.