Soloists Shine in Ensemble Resonanz/Minasi’s Underpowered Mozart Program

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 like 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 fully came to life. Everything seemed distant, detached, and uninvolving. 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.

Neither was there anything amiss with Resonanz’s playing, which was clearly articulated and well integrated. The timpani playing might have been a bit overenthusiastic at times. As the late Charles Mackerras demonstrated in his Mozart recordings with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, combining what we know of 18th-century performing techniques with the resources of a contemporary band can yield remarkable results. However, that sense of revelation and of finding something new in music that is so well known just never materialized here. Even the extraordinary fugal finale of the Jupiter Symphony failed to generate the usual adrenaline rush.

Certainly, Minasi’s choice of tempi, almost invariably fast, did not help. Neither did his tendency to signal transitions in the music with exaggerated changes of speed and dynamic or self-conscious pauses, which only destroyed any sense of coherence. The best, most engaging moments in the concert came from the two soloists in the Sinfonia Concertante. Clara-Jumi Kang’s neat, silvery violin playing was complemented and contrasted with Timothy Ridout’s effortlessly eloquent viola. In the central Andante particularly, they could have benefited from more expressive freedom than Minasi’s tempo allowed them.

Minasi clearly enjoyed himself, bantering with the promenaders and delivering a lengthy spoken introduction to the ensemble’s encore, the finale from Mozart’s Haffner Symphony, K385. Somehow, though, that enjoyment wasn’t always transmitted as it should have been.

• Available on BBC Sounds. The BBC Proms continue until 14 September

Source: The Guardian