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Since his death in 1976 at the age of 55, Géza Anda's considerable reputation has faded somewhat from view. But in his heyday he was widely regarded as a transcendent pianist, possessed of a natural technique that gave his performances an intimate quality, even when he was scaling the Himalayan heights of his signature Brahms B flat major concerto. It was with that work that he made his debut in 1939 in Budapest under Willem Mengelberg.

Anda was born in 1921 in Budapest; after studying with Imre Stefaniai and Imre Keeri-Szanto, he became a piano pupil of Ernst von Dohnányi at the Royal Music Academy. A stipend allowed him to travel to Berlin, where he performed Franck's Symphonic Variations under Furtwängler. Anda remained in Berlin during the first years of World War II, but in 1942 he fled to Switzerland, where he encountered the great pianist and teacher Edwin Fischer. Fischer was a proponent of performing the Mozart piano concertos while conducting from the keyboard, and Anda would later adopt this practice, adding bench-led performances of all the concertos (even the early ones) to his repertoire. Anda was among the first to explore the whole range of Mozart's concertos at a time when only the greatest hits were heard in concert halls; his outstanding 1960s recordings of the complete cycle with the Camerata Academica of the Salzburg Mozarteum remain a milestone in the history of recorded music.

Anda's style was noteworthy for its transparency of texture and its singing qualities, which led Furtwängler to dub him a "troubadour" of the piano. His flawless technique allowed him to invest his performances with considerable individuality: his readings of Schumann, for instance, were breathtakingly multidimensional, full of asides and highly appropriate introspective commentary conveyed from within Schumann's notes. He was especially influenced by his artistic partnership with the great Romanian pianist Clara Haskil, with whom he played two-piano repertoire from 1953 to 1958. Her moral commitment to conveying music's essence deepened Anda's own musical insight; his subsequent performances reflected a new harnessing of Anda's strong musical personality to the service of the music's meaning.

Although his repertoire was wide and ranged across core Classical-Romantic territory, it is likely that Anda will be most remembered for his interpretations of the music of his countryman Béla Bartók, whose three piano concertos he recorded in 1959 and 1960. These performances are masterpieces of technical ease and artistic mastery, and remain available in commercial release. A few months before the end of his too-brief life, Anda went into the studio and left a final testament of waltzes by Chopin, interpreted in an astonishing otherworldly manner. Anda allows the rhythmic impulse of Chopin's triple-time to hover almost motionlessly, as if contemplated from a distant and ethereal height.

The Camerata Salzburg is a chamber orchestra associated with Mozart's music and the Mozarteum University in the composer's hometown of Salzburg. Inspired by various conductors, the group has experimented with historical performance practice and with music as far forward in time as that of Arnold Schoenberg. The Camerata Salzburg has a recording catalog dating back well into the LP era. In the 2000s, it has recorded for major labels including Decca and Deutsche Grammophon, where it backed cellist Kian Soltani on the album Schumann in 2024.

The Camerata Salzburg was founded in 1952 by Bernhard Paumgartner, a Viennese conductor and musicologist who specialized in Mozart's music. The group's original name was Camerata Academica des Mozarteums Salzburg, later shortened to Camerata Academica Salzburg and finally, by the late 2010s, to Camerata Salzburg; the first album issued under the short name, Mozart: Horn Concertos 1-4 (2019), featured hornist Felix Klieser. At first, the group's membership comprised Paumgartner's students and fellow faculty members at the Salzburg Mozarteum University. Paumgartner remained conductor until his death in 1971 and led the group in a cycle of Mozart piano concertos with pianist Géza Anda in the '60s. He was succeeded three years later by Antonio Janigro, who introduced subscription concerts in Salzburg. Under Janigro and violinist-conductor Sándor Végh, principal conductor from 1978 until his own death in 1997, the group's activities steadily took on a more international scope. In the '80s, the group recorded with pianist András Schiff. An early digital recording was one of Vivaldi's Die vier Jahreszeiten ("The Four Seasons") in 1988.

Végh's influence on the Camerata Salzburg was fundamental, but the group has also been shaped by later conductors and by guest artists. Roger Norrington, who has a strong historical performance orientation, served as principal conductor from 1997 until 2006. Violinist Leonidas Kavakos held the title of principal guest artist in the early 2000s and served as artistic director from 2007 to 2009. France's Louis Langrée became principal conductor in 2011 and served until 2016. He was the last principal conductor to date; since then, the orchestra members make artistic decisions, with guests stepping in when a conductor is necessary. Those guests are a prestigious group that includes Franz Welser-Möst, John Eliot Gardiner, Philippe Herreweghe, and Theodor Currentzis; guest instrumentalists and singers are similarly notable and include violinists Janine Jansen and Anne-Sophie Mutter, pianist Vikingur Ólafsson, and tenor Rolando Villazón. The orchestra appears not only at the Mozarteum but frequently in Vienna at such venues as the Konzerthaus, and also in cities beyond Austria. It has continued to record frequently for such labels as Deutsche Grammophon, Decca, and Orfeo. On Deutsche Grammophon, the Camerata Salzburg appeared on the 2022 album Hélène Grimaud Plays Valentin Silvestrov, followed on the same label by 2024's Schumann, featuring cellist Kian Soltani. ~ James Manheim