Based at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, Ensemble Resonanz is a chamber orchestra that performs on modern instruments (except for its natural horns and trumpets) in a “historically informed” style. The group does not have a music director, but Riccardo Minasi is its chief guest conductor, and he was in charge for their debut at the Proms, in an all-Mozart programme.
On paper it looked an utterly delectable concert – two of Mozart’s greatest orchestral works, the Sinfonia Concertante for violin and viola, K364, and the Jupiter Symphony, K551, each prefaced by an operatic overture, to The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni. But somehow the music never came to life. Everything seemed distant, detached and uninvolving, and for once the Albert Hall itself was not entirely to blame, even though a relatively small band of fewer than 40 players was never going to fill such a space with sound.
