The Camerata Salzburg was formed in 1952 on the initiative of Bernhard Paumgartner from members of the Mozarteum University. After Paumgartner's death, it was Sándor Végh who shaped the ensemble's sound as violinist and conductor. Among the later artistic directors, Roger Norrington, now an honorary conductor, and Leonidas Kavakos deserve mention. Since 2016, the Camerata has only worked with conductors on a project-by-project basis; the focus is on individual responsibility and a sense of community. The current concert program with musicians such as Hélène Grimaud, Janine Jansen and Sheku Kanneh-Mason demonstrates how well this works. The artistic focus is, of course, on Mozart's works, but the Camerata also plays string music from other eras, from Romanticism to early modernism and the present. CLOSE

Trained in Moscow, Tel Aviv and Boston, he found his musical home in Europe: Israeli violinist Gregory Ahss has no shortage of flexibility. He won several competitions, both as a soloist and with the Tal Piano Trio, before becoming concertmaster of Claudio Abbado's Mahler Chamber Orchestra in 2005. In 2012 he moved to the Camerata Salzburg in the same capacity, where he has also served as one of two artistic directors since the ensemble's decision to dispense with a permanent conductor. Ahss' musical partners include violinists such as Daniel Hope and Janine Jansen, cellist Gautier Capuçon or clarinettist Sabine Meyer. About his role as concertmaster of the Camerata, he says: "It's about energy, eyes, communication. Then you can have amazing experiences with the orchestra." CLOSE

"Individuality, depth of expression and a charismatic appearance" are attested to Kian Soltani. Indeed, the Austrian with Iranian roots is at home in two cultures - a circumstance to which he paid homage in his debut CD with the significant title "Heimat". When it was released by Deutsche Grammophon in 2018, Soltani had already won the Paulo Cello Competition in Helsinki and the coveted Credit Suisse Young Artists Award. He has since established himself internationally, with appearances at the festivals of Schleswig-Holstein, Lucerne and Kissingen, as well as through his regular collaborations with greats such as Daniel Barenboim and Renaud Capuçon. In 2022, his innovative film music CD "Cello Unlimited" was awarded an Opus Klassik. CLOSE

1841 is Robert Schumann's "symphony year": after the symphony no. 1, which marked a breakthrough for the composer, the early version of the symphony no. 4 was written in the same year, as well as a somewhat enigmatic structure, sometimes described by Schumann as a symphony, suite or sinfonietta. The three movements form a coherent whole in E major, even though they lack the slow movement to form a complete symphony. The overture, initially conceived separately, strikes an almost Italianate light note, while the scherzo and finale are rhythmically striking movements carried by symphonic momentum.

Once Robert Schumann was seized by the fire of inspiration, everything happened very quickly. It took him only two weeks to compose his Cello Concerto. That was in 1850, shortly after he had taken up his new post as music director of Düsseldorf. And as in the famous piano concerto years earlier, virtuosity is by no means in the foreground here. The work is more of a three-part fantasia in which all movements flow into one another. Again and again, the grippingly explorative basic mood is clouded by melancholy passages - a truly romantic concerto.

With his A major symphony, Felix Mendelssohn set a sounding monument to Italy, the land of longing. It was written in the course of the great educational journey that took the young composer to Rome and Naples beginning in 1830. Typical Italian influences can be felt above all in the slow movement with its processional character and in the swirling saltarello finale. All the rest breathes Mediterranean air rather indirectly: as sunny cheerfulness and serene singing out. Despite a successful premiere in London, Mendelssohn withdrew the work in order to thoroughly revise it, but this never came to pass.