Quite a few engagements happen, or don’t happen, just by chance. In late 1997 the LA Opera wanted me to revive their Tristan, directed by my friend Jonathan Miller. Unfortunately they didn’t receive my Fax (What’s a Fax Dad?) accepting their offer. If they had received it I wouldn’t have been free to accept Mozart’s Mitridate for the Salzburg Mozart Woche in January 1998. It had a brilliant cast, and I was able to suggest Jonathan Miller to direct. The orchestra was the Camerata Academica.

I knew its conductor Sandor Vegh quite well from  Dartington and Prussia Cove. I admired his fine rendering all Mozart’s Serenades and Divertimenti with the orchestra. I’d heard he wasn’t well, but  was hoping to visit him again in Salzburg. Sad to say he died just before I arrived, and I went to his grand Feier in a church on the river just near the Mozarteum. All the musical great and good were there from Vienna and Berlin, and my old friend Hilary Tunstall Behrens from Prussia Cove. The Camerata gave a moving account of the slow movement from Bartok’s Divertimento, around an empty conductor’s chair. Everyone repaired to the Mozarteum for wine and pastries,- and then I went straight into my first rehearsal for Mitridate with the band!

The players were friendly and capable. They took a little while to adjust to Pure Tone, and an unusual layout, but soon started to enjoy themselves. Sandor had been very musical but very autocratic. His style of direction was to sit very high above them and give demanding verbal instructions and some vague hand waftings, which the leader had to interpret and pass on to the players. More than once I needed to explain that they had a conductor now, and needed to watch me, not the poor leader, any more.

We gave several performances of Mozart’s Mitridate with great success. It was written for Milan when Mozart was 14, and at that time received 21 performances. It wasn’t heard again for 200 years, and is a bit of an acquired taste. In a press conference I rather shocked every one by saying as much. I claimed that it was an interesting example of the thousands of unknown operas produced in the 18th Century, but probably wouldn’t have been revived at all if it hadn’t been by Mozart!

Jonathan’s production was a model of clarity and classical restraint. It was much admired, but not at all the sort of thing that opera chief Gerard Mortier liked; much too straightforward; awfully little nudity. He ordered the scenery burned as soon as the show was over. Jonathan sort of returned the compliment when in an interview he was asked what the Salzburg atmosphere was like He replied: “A mixture of Chanel No. 5 and Zyklon B”. He wasn’t asked back.

It was an enjoyable run, and the Camerata played better and better. (There is a CD of a live broadcast.) We also gave a concert which would have been Sandor’s, and at the end of these two or three weeks the the orchestra invited me to be their next Chief Conductor.  Some you win… Since I had just been signed up by Stuttgart Radio as well, this was quite a powerful pivot into my German-speaking career.

Our son Tom, aged 3, was with us for much of the time that winter. How well I remember him taking me for a “proper walk” on one of my rare days off during the rehearsals. We set off in the January ice and snow to climb the long track to the castle, shunning the funicular railway. Tom knew the route already. At the top, in the increasing mid-winter gloom, he showed me all the buildings, the chapel. and especially the cannons. As it grew completely dark we headed for the funicular to go home.

I was tired and ready for a gluwein. But as we arrived at the little station we saw the last train just leaving early, the staff all merrily waving at us. I thought Tom would be as upset as I was. Not a bit of it. ‘We’ll just have to walk Dad”. So we did. As we crossed the Cathedral square Tom was skipping along and singing. He picked up some icicles and when we got to the Oesterreichischer Hof he asked the staff if they could keep them for him in the freezer. They hurried off to do his bidding, but I can’t quite remember if they were still there when we returned in the summer! Atta boy!

For the next ten years it was a real joy to be in that exquisite city so often as Camerata chief.  For another ten I continued as a guest at the Festivals. For the Camerata I only conducted four of five projects each season, but they were rewarding, and very well attended by the Salzburg Abonnenten.

The Camerata had a most unfortunate history of poor governance. The players were constantly at odds with the Managers, and the Managers with the difficult Board. During my time there were five or six different Managers, several of them very good, who simply gave up the unequal struggle. But during all this endless quarrelling I had wonderful playing, and no trouble at all from the plaers. A strange paradox.

The Mozarteum, built in the very early 20th century, is perhaps the best hall in the world for chamber orchestras.

It’s a perfect size. It has the same number of seats as Haydn’s Hanover Square Rooms in London, and equally of Mendelssohn’s and Schumann’s first Gewandhaus in Leipzig. Our 22 strings and a few winds easily filled the beautifully decorated  room with sound. Indeed I sometimes suggested that we played softer. “We don’t need to shout!” I remember saying when rehearsing the four wonderful Schumann symphonies for a Begegnung Weekend. (Begegnung means “Encounter”)

These special events were inspired by my Experience weekends in London. We had annual single-composer weekend “Begegnungen” on Brahms, Schumann, Schubert, Beethoven, Haydn, Bach, and Purcell, comprising Chamber Music, Open Rehearsals, and Symphonies, with spoken introductions by me and quotations by Hannes Eichmann. They became quite a feature of the Salzburg musical landscape.

During my Salzburg years I continued to refine my stylistic approach to Haydn and Mozart. The players got used to Andantes that moved along, to on-the-string accompaniments, sharp staccatos, to constant phraseing, and of course beautiful Pure Tone. Natalie Chee joined as Leader shortly after me, and was a huge ally in all these ways of playing. When I was away she would explain to guest conductors that “We don’t do vibrato here”.

During the Haydn Begegnung I decided to show the audience how well the players now understood style. I explained that in Haydn’s day there was rarely more than one rehearsal, and very often none at all. I chose a symphony we had never played (No.50) and, during an open rehearsal,  suddenly handed out the completely unmarked parts. The  players were quite apprehensive and asked for a minute to look at the music. But they needn’t have been worried. They read it straight off perfectly, following the 18th century rules, deciding unanimously on note lengths, decorations, and detailed phraseing. I have a recording of that experiment, and it sounds like a real performance. In fact it was so good that many in the audience simply refused to believe that we were sight reading!

One memorable occasion was a concert on the eve of, and to celebrate, the year 2000. Among favourite Vienna waltzes etc were two brand new miniature commissions by Austrian composers. Afterwards we joined the sensational dinner in our hotel, the Sacher.

Apart from our four annual subscription concerts we occasionally toured: to the USA, to France and Germany, to Spain, Hungary and Israel, and to the Proms. We made a few records, a movie about Schumann, and quite a few televised concerts, including Haydn’s six Paris symphonies. My swan song with the Camerata Salzburg ( I got the name changed early on, leaving out “Accademica”) was another Mozart opera, the wonderful Idomeneo, in the 2006 Festspiel. And my last concert as chief ended with our favourite Posthorn Serenade. From beginning to end it was a most noteworthy and happy association.