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50 Years Camerata Salzburg

The Camerata Academica des Mozarteums Salzburg, the Camerata Academica Salzburg, the Camerata Salzburg - whichever name one chooses to use, the orchestra presented in this collection can now look back over fifty years of existence. As in 1952, the year it was formed, the ensemble is at home in Salzburg, the Austrian city on the Salzach River which was Mozart's birthplace and which is renowned for its Festival - attributes which determine the essential nature of the Camerata today just as they did at the beginning. In the course of those fifty years, the Camerata Salzburg has become one of the busiest chamber orchestras in the world. Year after year the musicians, now 36 in number, undertake concert tours all over the world, to old-established festivals and venerated concert halls or to exciting new venues like the Schwarzenberg Schubertiade. The Camerata Salzburg is in demand with concert promoters and popular with soloists. Personalities like the violinist Anne Sophie Mutter, the pianist Murray Perahia and the cellist Heinrich Schiff regularly book the Camerata and go on tour with it. Its present principal conductor is Sir Roger Norrington, who took over the post from the legendary Sándor Végh in 1998.

Musicians, conductors and audiences all know and esteem the singular performing spirit which inspires the Camerata Salzburg - individualism united into a whole, the 36 permanent members' individual awareness of responsibility for the whole. This approach goes back to Bernhard Paumgartner, the Salzburg conductor and teacher who, in the 1951/1952 season, called together a group of teachers and students of the Salzburg Mozarteum to form an orchestra according to his personal ideals. This recording pays homage not only to the Camerata Salzburgšs performing style, but also to its glorious past - an eventful history full of artistic high points as well as crises that jeopardized the ensemble's existence. It is the vigour and conviction of the musicians, their imagination, regenerative energy and constant readiness to face new artistic challenges which have sustained the Camerata through these fifty years and which have assured its audiences of delectable listening experiences right down to the present day.

Born in 1887, the conductor and musicologist Bernhard Paumgartner was a man who had a precise vision of how music should sound. Rich, homogeneous sound - which had anyway not yet become the rule in the 1950s - was not what he wanted; he sought a succinct style of playing that allowed the individual voices to be heard. Although he regularly conducted the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg at home and on tour after his return from exile in Switzerland after World War II, he was unable to give adequate expression to his intentions with it because of its fundamentally symphonic orientation. Paumgartner motivated the Mozarteum teachers and students he assembled in the autumn of 1951 to play together, but as individuals. He named the ensemble after the late sixteenth-century Florentine Camerata, in which cultured music-lovers got together to fulfil their common passion. Cultivation and passion were also what Paumgartner expected from his musicians. The Camerata Academica des Mozarteums Salzburgs, as the new ensemble was called, delivered the first proof of its ability at a concert given in the large hall of the Mozarteum in Salzburg on April 9, 1952. For Paumgartner, who had been director of the Salzburg research and museum institute called "Stiftung Mozarteum" from 1945 to 1949, the compositions of Salzburg's native son naturally took precedence. "His" Camerata developed a soloistically vital, transparent style of playing, and was soon being featured in the Salzburg Festival programmes. The Mozart Matinees which form part of the Salzburg Festival were instituted at Paumgartner's initiative. There he performed almost all of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's symphonic works - first with the Mozarteum Orchestra and later with the Camerata Academica. Each concert programme also included a Mozart concerto featuring a prominent soloist.

One of them was that grande dame of the piano, Clara Haskil, who joined forces with the Camerata Academica in that very first year and toured with it, first to Switzerland, then to Italy. Haskil worked with the Camerata until 1959 in highly successful tours abroad and concerts at home; in 1957 she also introduced the ensemble to the pianist Géza Anda, with whom it would later be involved in one of the most remarkable projects in recording history: the complete series of Mozart's piano concertos that began in 1962.

But innumerable concerts at home and abroad were still to come before that time. Even then, touring was important for the Camerata Academica and for its reputation; not only that - people beyond Austria actively wanted to hear the ensemble. But the problems of taking an orchestra on tour were then much greater than they are today - though it is still no easy matter. Airliners flew to relatively few destinations and were as a rule too expensive. The unwieldy instruments made train travel too complicated to organize, so buses were generally the best solution. But they did not provide the luxurious ride of today's vehicles, so that long journeys could become brutal trials both for the musicians and their instruments.

Happily, there was enough to do at home. In 1954 the Camerata Academica became the permanent ensemble of the Mozart Matinees. At the Mozarteum it functioned as a regular orchestra seminar, which increased its fixed income. And the ensemble continued to do its fair share of touring, Switzerland and Italy being the most frequent destinations.

The recording companies also gradually began to play a role. Having firmly established its superiority, the vinyl long-playing record was now creating a large demand for new recordings. The recording companies liked undertaking exotic projects, seeing them as a means of competitively boosting their image by presenting examples of artistic and scholarly excellence. The "Mozart Year" of 1956 provoked Philips to produce a complete Mozart edition; they contracted Bernhard Paumgartner to do some of Mozart's less famous operas, a field in which he was regarded as the leading expert. Consequently, Paumgartner and his Camerata recorded La finta semplice, Zaide, the opera buffa L'oca del Cairo K430 and other operas, as well as some of the symphonies and masses.

1956 was also the year in which the Mozarteum International Foundation in Salzburg brought the festival into being which remains a "must" for all friends of Mozart to this day and which is an important forum for the Salzburg Camerata: the winter Mozart festival called the "Mozart Week", taking place in January each year. It was there that the Camerata functioned as an opera orchestra for the first time - in the staged performance of La finta semplice at the Landestheater in Salzburg in 1956. In those days it was still possible to go on tour with a complete opera production. The entire ensemble, including the Camerata, toured Europe with La finta semplice all through the spring of 1956.

And it was on a tour that the Camerata Academica tried out a new style of performance which has again become very significant to its work in recent times. During a tour of Germany at the beginning of 1960, Géza Anda decided to direct the orchestra himself from the piano - a quite bold move at that time. Paumgartner even saw it as an attempt to undermine his authority. But the success of the concerts proved Anda right and from then on this method of working was used in the Salzburg Festival Matinees. The alliance with Géza Anda was a long and productive one, lasting until 1970 and embracing concerts, tours and the Mozart piano concerto recording project. During that period the Camerata also regularly performed at the Salzburg Festival, where it presented concerts with soloists like Rita Streich, Edith Mathis, Helen Donath, Alfred Brendel and Christoph Eschenbach.

Deliberations began in 1960 about finding a successor to Bernhard Paumgartner, who was then already seventy-three. However, he retained the strength and energy to direct his orchestra into the late 1960s. The decade thus became a phase of reorientation, in which the Camerata Academica worked with various conductors and took the necessary time to make the right decision when they finally came to appointing a new artistic director. They naturally wanted to find a person with whom they could work for a long time and maintain continuity as they had with Paumgartner. But the Camerata was also faced with other, wide-reaching changes. Many of the original musicians had now reached an age at which they felt they should make room for younger ones. For a professional orchestra of the rank of the Salzburg Camerata Academica however, replacing older members with younger teachers and talented pupils was no longer acceptable, and a critical situation developed. The turnover of musicians took place too quickly, so that there was a drop-off in the quality of performance. The final straw came after Paumgartner's death in 1971. All the Salzburg Festival commitments were cancelled, leading a Salzburg newspaper to announce: "Paumgartner's Mozart orchestra has been given the push". Management and musicians found themselves fighting for the survival of their orchestra.

But they did find conductors willing to commit themselves to the Camerata for relatively long periods. The Swiss conductor Urs Schneider became Paumgartner's immediate successor in 1971. He remained until 1973. In that same year Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau made his conducting debut with the Camerata Academica in concerts in Innsbruck, Salzburg and Linz. The cellist Antonio Janigro was appointed artistic director in 1974. An internationally acclaimed artist, Janigro had contacts all over the world and opened the doors of new performing venues to the ensemble. The press took note of the successful direction this new partnership seemed to be taking, and reacted positively. The Camerata Academica had overcome its first major crisis. The ensemble instituted a series of subscription concerts in Salzburg. The soloists who performed during the first season included the oboist Heinz Holliger, the flautist Aurèle Nicolet, the violinist Wolfgang Schneiderhan and a musician who would later decisively shape the future of the orchestra: Sándor Végh.

The violinist Sándor Végh was born in 1912 in Kolozsvár, which was then in Hungary but is today the Romanian city of Cluj-Napoca. Végh made his name above all in the field of chamber music. His teachers included Zoltán Kodály in Budapest and he was one of the original members of the Hungarian String Quartet when it was formed in 1935. He established his own string quartet when he himself began teaching at the Franz Liszt Academy in 1940; the Végh Quartet earned international acclaim, particularly for its interpretations of works by Beethoven and Bartók. The quartet resettled in Basel in 1946. Végh began conducting a master class at the Düsseldorf Conservatory in 1963 and in 1972 went to Salzburg as professor of violin at the Mozarteum.

The encounters with Végh as soloist in their concerts from 1976 had made a deep impression on the Camerata musicians. They felt that his way of playing matched their own, that it inspired them and opened up new horizons. In 1978 Antonio Janigro's health began to decline seriously and the question of a successor had to be raised. The Camerata musicians had no doubts about wanting Sándor Végh as their new artistic director - and it was Végh that they got.

The first concert under his official direction took place in Salzburg on November 11, 1978. Rather like Paumgartner, Végh sought the individual qualities of the musicians in his new ensemble. He envisaged a new kind of orchestra which would allow the string-quartet ideals to be realized on a larger scale. For this reason - and for financial ones - Végh's "new Camerata" started as a pure string ensemble made up of five first and four second violins, three violas, two cellos and a double-bass. In consequence, the first concerts concentrated on the larger-scale chamber works of Schubert, Mendelssohn, Beethoven, Bartók, Mozart and Haydn. It was very soon apparent to audiences and reviewers alike that they were witnessing the inception of a new, vital way of approaching Mozart's music.

As he had done in his string quartet days, Végh worked very intensively with "his" musicians. As one of them recalled, "Rehearsals were incredibly hard work in the first few years, each rehearsal was basically an intensive violin lesson ... His [Végh's] approach to performing was characterized by the idea that every single musician had to 'feel' the music in himself." The greatest initial advances were therefore made at the artistic level. Engagements tended to be slow in coming, since Végh's name was associated with chamber music and teaching and he had not yet proved himself as a conductor. But the connections from his quartet days did at least allow the Camerata to travel to Italy and France and to perform in Cervo and Menton, where Végh had set up small, personal music festivals.

In 1983 the Camerata under Végh again won back the favour of the Salzburg Festival organizers and was invited to give concerts in the Felsenreitschule and the large hall of the Mozarteum. The audiences welcomed the ensemble home with great applause. This success also brought the Camerata and its special performing style under Végh's direction to the attention of the rest of the musical world. In the coming years, the ensemble regularly set off for various destinations in Europe and embarked on tours of North and South America, Japan and South Africa. Végh's inspiration seemed to be inexhaustible, casting its spell over musicians and audience alike at each performance. The recording industry also sought to claim its share of the Végh Camerata's success and concentrated mainly on Mozart works, including the piano concertos with András Schiff as soloist, but compositions by Bartók, Schoenberg and Haydn were also recorded. Végh followed the trend by extending the repertoire of his Camerata. In addition to Mozart, Haydn and Schubert, compositions by composers like Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Brahms, Dvorák, Wolf and Tchaikovsky returned to the concert programmes. And in the 1987/88 season the subscription concerts in Salzburg were supplemented by a series of Sándor Végh Concerts at the Konzerthaus in Vienna, where Végh appeared with both the Camerata and the Vienna Chamber Orchestra. The concerts known as the "Symphonie Classique" still feature the Camerata in the Austrian capital to this day. The ensemble's success is also reflected in its concert statistics: from 1987 to 1988 the number of concerts climbed from 54 to 83. Since then the Camerata has given between 85 and 95 concerts yearly.

The subscription concerts of the Camerata Academica under Sándor Végh's direction were the most important concert events in Salzburg in the 1990s apart from the festival seasons themselves. The concert focus fell on the symphonic works of Mozart, Haydn and Schubert. But that was not all, since opera was beckoning in Salzburg. The Mozart Week of 1993 saw the Camerata Academica in the additional role of opera orchestra, with Mozart's Lucio Silla under the musical direction of Sylvain Cambreling and the stage direction of Peter Mussbach, and co-produced by the Salzburg Festival, under the artistic direction of Gérard Mortier and Hans Landesmann. In the ensuing years this operatic work drew attention to the Camerata - even without Sándor Végh. Festival productions under various conductors, including La Clemenza di Tito, The Rake's Progress, Ombra Felice and, in 2001, the last year of Mortier's intendancy, The Marriage of Figaro, were decisively influenced by the Camerata sound. A gradual and artistically motivated process of detaching themselves from Sándor Végh's dominance was important for the musicians, since Végh's health deteriorated rapidly from 1995 onwards; although his artistic drive remained, it was clearly becoming ever more difficult for him to ascend the rostrum. He was often forced to cancel tours. The violinist Leonidas Kavakos took over direction for the tour to Greece in 1996, and the Camerata has been closely associated with Kavakos ever since.

Sándor Végh died at the age of eighty-five, on January 7, 1997. Although his death did not come unexpectedly, it hit both the Camerata and the audiences hard. Végh's special, always challenging and inspiring style had long become more than just second nature to the Camerata musicians in all they did together. For some time it was inconceivable to them that they would be able to exist without it. This absolute identification with Végh's musical approach now created a crisis in the Camerata. Alexander Janiczek, who was the principal first violinist at the time and who had acted as assistant artistic director, initially conducted the Camerata concerts. It was however obvious to all that in order to ensure the future success of the ensemble another principal conductor with a distinctive image and an international reputation had to be found. Sir Roger Norrington was the man they chose.

The Camerata performed in the Mozart opera Mitridate, re di Ponto under his direction in the Mozart Week of 1997. Norrington, a pioneer of historical performance practice with vast experience in conducting orchestras of all kinds, had the artistic stature the musicians considered necessary for the continuance of their work. In May of the same year Norrington declared himself willing to become the principal conductor of the Salzburg Camerata Academica beginning in September, 1998. The problem was solved more quickly than anyone had thought possible.

Working with Roger Norrington brought the musicians the sense of stability they so desperately needed at that moment. Although he was only available four or five times a year - he also became principal conductor of the SWR Symphony Orchestra in Stuttgart just at that time - Norrington's prominence benefited the Camerata, and his distinctive style was something both they and their audiences could depend upon and look forward to. The Salzburg Festival created for the Camerata and Norrington a special new concert series of their own in which Norrington could "try out" interesting combinations of composers, like Beethoven and Bartók or Schubert and Schoenberg. The festival Begegnung (experience) which Sándor Végh had initiated and which took place in Salzburg every May was revamped by Norrington into intensive three-day encounters with selected composers like Schumann, Schubert, Brahms and Mendelssohn - naturally in his own style, drawn from his expertise in period performance practice.

Norrington also attracted young soloists such as the violinist Joshua Bell to the Camerata. At the same time, the ensemble carried on a method of performing which was already an established tradition for them by working ever more frequently with soloists who wanted to conduct the orchestra themselves from their instrument, as Géza Anda had once done. Mitsuko Uchida, Murray Perahia, Thomas Zehetmair and Heinrich Schiff were among them, while the ensemble went on tour several times with Anne Sophie Mutter as both soloist and conductor. Since 2000 the Camerata has regularly worked with the violinist Leonidas Kavakos. A pupil of Sándor Végh, Kavakos has been given the title of "Principal Guest Artist", and appears with the Camerata both as soloist and as conductor.

While the Camerata Salzburg has not been spared hard times during its fifty years of existence, it has certainly also enjoyed many hours of glory. What has remained is the strength which was imparted to it by Bernhard Paumgartner and which other musical personalities have repeatedly renewed - the strength to preserve and utilize the individuality of each musician and so to effect constant artistic regeneration. That will enable the Camerata to adapt to a future holding many artistic adventures in store.

By Laszlo Molnar (Translation by J & M Berridge)