​Viola de Hoog

Ensemble Schönbrunn

has built an admirable reputation with over 25 years of concerts and CD recordings of chamber music selected by its artistic leader and founding member Marten Root who re-discovered unknown repertoire, ranging from Frescobaldi to Debussy.

The ultimate testimony is their CD series 'Out of the shadow of the masters'  which appeared on Globe Records and which includes compositions of contemporaries of Mozart and Beethoven, such as Friedrich Hartmann Graf, Anton Reicha, Ferdinand Ries and Johann Martin Nisle. Ensemble Schönbrunn also distinguishes itself by presenting well -known masterpieces from the chamber music repertoire in an innovative way. They specially developed a 'nocturnal event' for the Early Music Festival in Utrecht a performance in which compositions of Debussy were played on historical 19th century instruments, combined with a modern reconstruction of the lost Tableaux Vivants done in cooperation with photographer Marco Borggreve and visual artist Daan Noppen. The most recent examples are their concerts with Bach's Musical Offering, performed on (a copy of) the earliest fortepiano, as had been used by Frederic the Great in 1747 at the court of Potsdam. 

The size and the combination of instruments of the ensemble varies, depending on the repertoire, from trio to nonet. For the concerts and recording of Mozart's Concertos for flute the ensemble performs as a chamber orchestra without conductor as was often the case in the 18th century. 

The CDs of Ensemble Schönbrunn appear on Globe Records.