Lahti Symphony Orchestra: Leleux with Love

FRANCOIS LELEUX, conductor, oboe and cor anglais

Maurice Ravel: Ma mère l’Oye
Claude Debussy, arr. Gilles Silvestrini: Rhapsody for saxophone, version for oboe and cor anglais
Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5

Having been blacklisted when he was at the height of his popularity, Dmitri Shostakovich saved his career by reinventing his style under duress and in a hurry. The Fifth Symphony, which ends rousingly, was interpreted as Shostakovich’s apology for his earlier compositions, which had fostered pessimism. The truth was different: the mockery and resentment hidden in the work pointed directly towards the highest echelons of state power.

François Leleux, the new artistic director of the prestigious Kammerakademie Potsdam, here making a return visit to Lahti, is also probably the world’s most celebrated oboist and a master of the cor anglais. At the Sibelius Hall, he performs Maurice Ravel’s timeless suite Ma mère l’Oye, based on medieval folk tales, and a French delicacy rarely heard in Finland, Claude Debussy’s Rhapsody from 1901.

The length of the concert is about 2 hours, including intermission.

Organizer: Lahti Symphony Orchestra.