IN A fascinating recital of songs by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, given by Wolfgang Holzmair and Gerard Wyss, one could perceive the burgeoning of that form of song which is called Lieder. Haydn's cool accompaniments leave expressiveness to the vocal part; Mozart allows the piano part to share in the emotional drama; and Beethoven while plainly influenced by his predecessors, takes the daring step of joining a number of songs into one continuous whole.

It could have been a history lesson, but the artistry of the performers brought each song to startling life. Anticipations of Schubert in Haydn are realised in hindsight; to Haydn's contemporaries and to the audience in the RHK last Sunday such moments were pure Haydn. Mozart's Masonic cantata, Die ihr des unermesslichen Weltalls Schopfer ehrt, is a splendid and, as it were, dateless piece of musical rhetoric.

Holzmair's baritone voice seems to grow more honied with time and it brought to each song a sensuous beauty that magically adapted itself to the texts. Wyss's accompaniments provided the framework above which the voice could soar before coming to land.

The songs in English by Haydn (one by Shakespeare, five by Anne Hunter) were performed with so much emphasis that one wondered if it was appropriate; but it must be admitted that Anne Hunter's poems need help and Holzmair injected patriotic fire into The roaring cannon loudly speaks; 'tis Britan's glory we maintain.

Holzmair's English is very good indeed, but in German he is naturally most at home, and he showed it in Beethoven's An die ferne Geliebte with a consummate mastery of vocal technique.