Work: Concerto funebre, for solo violin and string orchestra

The violinist (and, for tonight's purposes, conductor, stage director and performance artist) gives a rare and precious concert in Saanen’s beautiful church.

It takes artistic invention and considerable courage to design a concert programme solely around tragic topics; yet the connecting link between the various items on the last subscription concert by the Australian Chamber Orchestra was – directly or indirectly – death and great composers’ reaction to it. The key of C minor invariably carries sombre overtones in the works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Alina Ibragimova with the Scottish Ensemble perform exuberant early teenage Mendelssohn, deeply spiritual Pärt and Vasks, politically lethal Hartmann and utterly thrilling Bach.