The Camerata Salzburg has been one of the leading chamber orchestras in the world for decades. The musicians from Salzburg regularly prove this on the big stages of the world. From New York to Paris, from Tokyo to London. But the orchestra also shines at home with lively concert activities. In its own subscription cycle in the Great Hall of the Mozarteum Foundation, but also as one of the regular ensembles of the Salzburg Festival. A biography.
Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky – the repertoire of the Dorm room includes pretty much all the grand masters of classical music. Of course, the focus of the orchestra’s work is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It is also thanks to Salzburg’s greatest son that the orchestra has been invited countless times to the world’s major concert halls since it was founded in 1952 and has become THE musical figurehead of the city alongside the great composer. Art and culture connoisseurs speak of this very typical and yet unique Mozart sound, which no one can do as well as the musicians from Salzburg. But everything from the beginning.
Unique Mozart sound
The year is 1952. Bernhard Paumgartner, conductor and musicologist, had precise ideas of how music should ideally sound. And despite his work as conductor of the Mozarteum Orchestra, he wasn’t really satisfied. He was looking for a concise performance style that gave the individual voices their space. And a symphonically oriented orchestra couldn’t give him that. So he invited a number of teachers and students Mozarteum to make music together. And the rest is once again history.
The Camerata Academica of the Mozarteum Salzburg was born and ended its first concert on April 9, 1952 to thunderous applause. Concert tours to Switzerland and Italy followed. In addition, the orchestra soon stopped in the program of Salzburg Festival Indent. Even then, Mozart’s comprehensive works were at the center of his creative work.
International Glory and Crisis
From 1954 the Camerata was available to the Salzburg Festival as a permanent ensemble of the Mozart Martineen and functioned as a regular orchestra seminar at the music academy. Even concert tours were not neglected in the 1950s, and the first vinyl recordings were made. Back then it was still a big deal for such a large group. Finally, in 1956, the Mozart week was brought to life – a fixed date in January for fans of the composer to this day.
At the beginning of the 1970s, the orchestra, which had been so accustomed to success, fell into a deep crisis. Triggered by Paumgartner’s death, the contract with the Salzburg Festival was not renewed. Many complained about the declining quality and even the Salzburger Nachrichten headlined ‘Paumgartner’s Mozart Orchestra was sent to the desert’, devastatingly. It was a struggle for survival that lasted until 1974. Then, with the cellist Antonio Janigro, a man rose to become artistic director who, thanks to his international contacts, found new venues for the orchestra. Things were looking up again at home, too, and the musicians made positive headlines again with a Camerata subscription cycle.
Der Spirit von Sándor Végh
Sándor Végh appeared in Salzburg for the first time as a soloist at a Camerata concert. His way of playing corresponded to the ideal of the orchestra and he gave the musicians back the spirit of the early years. Fame and international renown were finally back. The result was triumphant concert tours and a new contract as a festival orchestra. Not to mention the standing ovations at the subscription concerts.
first among equals
After Végh’s death, Sir Roger Norrington, Leonidas Kavakos and Louis Langrée took over as chief conductor. Since 2016, the musicians of the Camerata have taken the artistic direction into their own hands. The orchestra is conducted alternately by its two concert masters, the Israeli-Russian violinist Gregory Ahss and the Venezuelan-Italian violinist Giovanni Guzzo, as respective “primus inter pares”.
In their joint work, the musicians search for interpretation, subtleties and nuances, for volume, rhythm and sound. In this way, even in the seventh decade of its existence, the orchestra has retained a “joy of playing that is contagious” (Neue Zürcher Zeitung). “Carried by a sense of community that borders on the magical” (Der Standard). CAMERATA also regularly invites important guest conductors to collaborate.
The Camerata Anniversary Season
In 2022 the Camerata will celebrate its 70th anniversary – an anniversary that naturally wants to be celebrated. Especially since the past few years have been characterized more by a straining silence than by grandiose musical sounds. And so the orchestra will not only open the year 2022 with a celebratory concert in Salzburg, but also invite you to a total of seven concerts with seven different programs at the Mozarteum Foundation. One person who will turn up and celebrate at every concert is none other than Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who has accompanied the orchestra constantly since it was founded.
The exact program and further information you can find here.
©Cover photo: Pia Clodi