Yesterday evening I sat under a London plane in Kensington Gardens near the Albert Memorial for a picnic.
It was redolent of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám: “A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread—and Thou Beside me”. We had smoked salmon (labelled wild) and cans of cold lager in evening sunshine with a summer zephyr to keep us cool. It was the perfect prelude to an all Mozart prom: two overtures, a Sinfonia and a Symphony; the Ensemble Resonanz making its prom debut under the baton of irrepressible Italian conductor Riccardo Minasi. Although it is usually a string ensemble it was beefed up last night with two trumpets and a timpani. However, it still was small enough to engender an intimate relationship between conductor and musicians. Minasi had no podium and at times walked into the ensemble as he conducted. He had no music for most of the pieces so could roam round at will.
After the final scheduled piece, the Jupiter Symphony, he addressed the audience discursively but largely inaudibly to all except the Prommers in front of him. Having established that Mozart is to their liking he name checked and pointed out his Aunt Ivana in the audience. Unlike the Ensemble Resonanz it was her second visit to the Albert Hall – the first being fifty years ago. Eventually he got round to an encore – the 4th movement of Mozart’s Haffner Symphony.
I will listen to it all again later and to tonight’s prom: Beethoven’s 9th. The season is at last hitting the spot after some unsatisfactory earlier offerings.