This disc contains most of the music from Bernhard Paumgartner’s Mozart Matinee Salzburg Festival concert of August 4, 1957. Despite the Camerata Academica Salzburg’s emaciated string tone and occasionally sour intonation, the players do their damndest to give their leader the crisp rhythms and transparent textures he obviously desires. Cases in point are the incisive wind playing in the Schauspieldirektor overture and the careful balancing of tune and accompaniment throughout the little symphony’s Andante. The soloists, however, remain principal attractions. Soprano Erika Köth’s pure tone and agile, supremely controlled coloratura in her selections are worth the disc’s price. The ravishing colors and uncanny ensemble unity Clara Haskil and Géza Anda achieve in the Two Piano Concerto are even more rarified than in their EMI studio recording. A pity the live recording is hampered by backward balances, with the pianos recessed and the strings virtually in your face. Then again, who among the participants could have imagined this concert turning up on a commercial record release 45 years after the fact?
