The Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse under the direction of its music director Tugan Sokhiev began its season with three masterpieces of classical music by Mozart, Beethoven, and Shostakovich. Mozart's Overture to Don Giovanni introduces the opera's title character with a delightful mixture of foreboding and frivolous music. Next the Russian pianist Elisabeth Leonskaja takes the stage for a performance of Beethoven's formidable Piano Concerto No. 3. The concert closes with Shostakovich's Symphony No. 9. Written in 1945 and originally publicized as a work that would glorify Stalin as the leader of a victorious Russia, the symphony Shostakovich eventually produced—light, neutral, and in a neoclassical style—prompted censure from his contemporaries and anger from Stalin himself, who expected a monumental and patriotic paean to the Soviet leader.

Photo: © Les Films Jack Fébus