Much of the routine’s appeal comes from watching four accomplished musicians manage several tasks at once. At different moments, the performers support or reposition the cello, reach across the keyboard and briefly help produce notes on instruments other than their own. These visual jokes are integrated into the arrangement rather than presented as separate circus tricks, allowing the competition to build without bringing the music to a halt. The apparent disorder is therefore part of a tightly rehearsed ensemble performance.
That combination of virtuosity and slapstick helped “Competitive Foursome” become Salut Salon’s best-known online performance. The group uploaded the video to YouTube in February 2014, and it has since accumulated more than 44 million views. By 2016, Warner Classics was already describing it as an online sensation with 20 million views. Salut Salon has also been compared to the “Harlem Globetrotters of classical music,” a description that captures the quartet’s blend of technical ability, theatrical showmanship and playful competition.
The ensemble’s history stretches back well before the video’s online success. Bachmann and Siegfried met as young musicians in a Hamburg school orchestra and later performed at gatherings in an apartment salon in the city’s Eppendorf district. The quartet’s name combines two parts of that history: “Salut” refers to Edward Elgar’s Salut d’amour, one of its early repertoire pieces, while “Salon” recalls the setting in which the musicians first developed the act. Salut Salon achieved its breakthrough with sold-out Hamburg concerts in 2002.
The quartet’s approach has also received recognition within the classical music industry. Salut Salon won a 2016 ECHO Klassik award in the “Classics Without Borders” category for the album Carnival Fantasy. Away from the concert stage, the musicians have supported music education projects involving children and young people, including a music project for disadvantaged children in Chile and the German initiative The Young ClassX. Their work combines accomplished musicianship, comedy and music education, helping the ensemble reach audiences far beyond the conventional chamber-music circuit.