Haydn’s Drum Roll

Queen’s Hall 23/10/25

Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Alina Ibragimova violin/director

In the Scottish Chamber Orchestra’s first Queen’s Hall concert of this season, violinist, Alina Ibragimova, in demand world-wide as a soloist and orchestral director, plays Hartmann’s 1939 ‘Concerto Funebre’ and then directs the orchestra in Haydn’s ‘Drum Roll’ Symphony. First thirteen wind musicians take the stage for Richard Strauss’s ‘Suite in Bb’, his youthful homage to Mozart’s ‘Gran Partita’. They’re joined initially by bassist Jamie Kenny who provides an exemplary introduction, in which he reveals that his great-grandmother was living in St Gallen Switzerland in 1940 when Hartmann’s concerto was given its premiere there- maybe she was in the audience?

The twenty-minute suite in four movements is played by six ‘higher’ wind instruments – pairs of flutes, oboes and clarinets - and seven ‘lower’ winds, two bassoons, a contrabassoon and four horns. They sit in a semi-circle, with principal flute, André Cebrián at the left, directing, minimally, as you may imagine, with this crack group of players! The original performance of the 20 year old Strauss’s work was conducted by the composer himself, the first time he’d ever conducted. All the instruments are involved in the first movement ’Preludium’, an overlapping of short phrases which seem to criss-cross the ensemble. Clarinets dominate in the Romanze, a lovely slow movement where the melodies are allowed to develop, and where there’s a Wagnerian flourish in the seemingly distant hunting horns. The Gavotte is cheerful rather than stately while the closing Fuge again involves all the instruments, this time in a series of  elaborate counterpoints.

Karl Amadeus Hartmann is the third composer represented by a World War II work in the SCO’s concerts this season. Like Strauss’s ‘Metamorphosen’, the ‘Concerto funebre’  is written for a small string orchestra and is driven by the composer’s personal grief about the war. Hartmann, like Strauss,  lived in Munich, but unlike the older composer (whose ambiguous relationship with the Nazi regime you can read about in David Kettle’s programme notes) Hartmann decided that he would continue to compose during the war but would not allow his work to be played in Germany. The concerto’s first performance took place in neutral Switzerland.

Alina Ibragimova has championed this concerto, and we are lucky to have her interpretation to guide us through this difficult work. Hartmann’s comment that he wrote for the violin because it was the instrument closest to the human voice is helpful too.  The sense of an individual working against a hostile world is present through much of the concerto when the soloist’s lines are different from, and sometimes clash harmonically with those of the orchestra. Ibragimova stands centrally, and in the brief largo introduction and the longer Adagio movement, both she and the orchestra play quietly. The music is mournful, but also tentative, with the soloist eventually developing a melody which rises to the top of her range, while the orchestral phrases remain disjointed. The longer Allegro  sees a change of mood and volume. The orchestra sets up an angry seven-beat rhythm, while the soloist, playing above and around them, is also  loud and frenzied. This culminates in a breath-taking display of  virtuosity as the soloist sets up a quick-fire challenge  to the other strings’ beat – terrific playing from everyone. Passions have died before Ibragimova’s cadenza, a soaring lyrical display which looks forward to the final movement . The Chorale Langsamer (slower) is, like the opening movement, quiet but, with hints of plainchant at the beginning, and a folksong feel to the legato violin melody, this is a harmonious close, a sense of peace and reconciliation which is not mere resignation.

Louise Lewis Goodwin is behind her timpani for Haydn’s ‘Drum Roll’ Symphony No 103 in E-flat after the interval. She’s joined by a Haydn-sized orchestra with pairs of woodwinds, two natural horns and two natural trumpets. Alina Ibragimova directs from the leader’s chair turning towards the orchestra. I can’t see her face but judging from the responses of the musicians, she’s smiling as she directs – as well she might in this joyously inventive late work by the ‘Father of the Symphony’.  Jamie Kenny suggested that the opening drumroll may have been a call to attention for the reputedly noisy London concert-goers. The adagio opening moves quietly from the lowest instruments to highest ones and back again with teasing hints of a transition to the main theme before the airy allegro con spirito breaks out.  The work proceeds merrily with a similar three beat rhythms repeated over its varying themes before a further ominous drumroll precedes a short return to the low pitched opening sounds, finally dispersed by a rousing burst of trumpets. The andante piu testo allegretto (a composer of Haydn’s distinction could have it all ways) which was encored at its first performance was, I thought at first hearing, a rondo. In fact it alternates contrasting major and minor versions of the same theme which become increasingly more elaborate. The slow march is softened by delicate woodwind phrases and a violin solo in the major sections and is given brassy pomp in the minor key.  The minuet with its cheeky horn rejoinders suggests people enjoying themselves more than polite society would permit, while the timpani keeps the heavy beat going. The trio is gentler with strings and woodwinds swapping the same rapid rhythm. Horns introduce the finale, marked allegro con spirito which is as adventurous in its unusual instrumental grouping and blended sounds in the quieter passages as in its triumphant  conclusion.

A word of appreciation for Afonso Fesch, the SCO’s Principal First Violin. A fine musician, he has ably supported Leader Stephanie Gonley, guest leaders and soloist/directors like Alina Ibragimova over the last year. Tonight he proves his coolness under pressure when one of his strings breaks. He and the violinist behind him swap instruments, and the process is repeated, with the back-row first violin taking the instrument off-stage and returning with it restrung for swapping back between movements!

A concert of contrasting styles and moods receives deservedly warm applause for violinist Alina Ibragimova and the orchestra.  Next week Yeol Eum Sum performs two Mozart concertos in the Queen’s Hall. Tickets are in high demand.