The first piece on the programme is the overture to the last opera that Gioachino Rossini ever wrote, in 1829. It quotes four important themes: the idyllic melody heard from the cello is followed by the depiction of a sudden storm, before transitioning into the pastoral song of an English horn and the drumbeats of horses galloping into battle.
The second work in the concert is by Antonio Pasculli, “the Paganini of the oboe”. Playing the exceptionally difficult oboe part in his concerto will be François Leleux, who as both the conductor for the evening and the soloist will show the unmatched virtuosity, lightness and elegance that make him a worthy successor to the composer.

The second part of the concert will feature a pre-eminent masterpiece: Franz Schubert’s grand and final symphony. Long mistakenly believed to have been written in 1828, it actually dates from 1825. More recent research, however, has successfully identified it as the “Gmunden-Gastein” symphony, previously believed lost. We have the composer’s brother, Ferdinand Schubert, to thank for the revival of this Sleeping Beauty of a work that was never performed during its creator’s lifetime: it was he who showed it to Robert Schumann during his visit to Vienna in 1838/39, and the German composer published it in 1840. This treasure emerging from obscurity also piqued the interest of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, who gave it its première in 1839. Schumann had these words of praise for the piece: “All must recognize that it reveals to us something more than beautiful song, mere joy and sorrow, such as music has always expressed in a hundred ways; it leads us into regions which — to our best recollection — we had never before explored.”