A sense of sound, sensitivity and the ability to think “behind” the tones, to create atmosphere, to allow sensations to be experienced directly in the timbred sound, characterize Hartmut Höll’s playing. He has been one of the sought-after piano partners for decades. He knows the value of chamber music collaboration and is smart enough to maintain long-term partnerships.
Hartmut Höll initially studied in Stuttgart with Paul Buck and Konrad Richter, generously supported as a scholarship holder by the “Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkss”, but also received decisive impulses in his private collaboration with Leonard Hokanson.
From 1982 to 1992 he was a partner of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Recitals at the Salzburg Festival, the festivals in Edinburgh, Florence, Munich, Berlin and Toyko, and in New York's Carnegie Hall established the much-praised collaboration.
He has accompanied Renée Fleming at concerts in Europe, Australia, Asia and the USA for more than three decades. For him, she is the singer of our globalized world, and he admires how this unique singer knows how to appeal to people from different cultures all over the world and inspire them with music with a wide repertoire of works from four centuries.
He was part of the song duo Mitsuko Shirai for over four decades. Both have set standards in song interpretation with worldwide concerts and CDs. »Peter Pears - Benjamin Britten, Pierre Bernac - Francis Poulenc: In our own day, Mitsuko Shirai and Hartmut Höll have achieved a comparable artistry.« THE AUDİOPHİLE VOİCE, USA. For Mitsuko Shrai and Hartmut Höll, song art was always chamber music from the very beginning. So in 1973 they created the term “lied duo,” which is widely used today.
Hartmut Höll's singing partners are or were Changyong Liao, Christoph Prégardien, Thomas Hampson, Wolfgang Holzmair, Urszula Kryger, Jadwiga Rappé, Josef Protschka, Jochen Kowalski, Hermann Prey, Peter Schreier.
Hartmut Höll's particular interest is in the younger generation: the mezzo-soprano Yajie Zhang, the tenor Ilker Arcayürek, and the baritone Gabriel Rollinson. Chamber music partners were Tabea Zimmermann, Eduard Brunner, Jörg Widmann, Gervase de Peyer, Sabine Meyer and others.
Around sixty CD productions (with Mitsuko Shirai, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Tabea Zimmermann, Sabine Meyer, Urszula Kryger, Jadwiga Rappé, Josef Protschka, Roman Trekel and Leila Pfister) are available (Capriccio, Decca, EMI, Erato, Claves, MDG , BayerRecords) and represent an extremely diverse and broad repertoire. Many of these recordings have received international awards (Diapason d’Or, German Record Critics’ Prize, etc.). In August 2024, a production of songs by the African-American composer William Grant Still, which Hartmut Höll made together with Gabriel Rollinson and Yajie Zhang, will be released by cpo. In collaboration with Changyong Liao, a production of Chinese art songs is being created.
As a professor at the Karlsruhe University of Music, Hartmut Höll is closely connected to the young generation of artists after previous professorships in Frankfurt and Cologne. Today, graduates of his teaching continue the tradition as professors – in Salzburg, Vienna, Paris, Freiburg, Seoul, Toyko, Erfurt, Manila, Montevideo and others.
In 1998/1999 Hartmut Höll was a visiting professor in Helsinki, from 1994 to 2003 a visiting professor at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg; He also taught song composition at the Zurich University of the Arts for almost ten years, succeeding Irwin Gage.
