Festival Music

François Leleux and Eric Le Sage

Queens Hall, Edinburgh

Hazel Rowland

four stars

WHO would have thought that a recital of music for oboe and piano could have elicited such a variety of moods? Already with the opening piece, Saint-Saëns’ Oboe Sonata Op. 166, we were treated to the many sides of oboist François Leleux’s playing. He immediately captured the sweetness of the first movement’s pastoral and then the birdlike melody in the second. Quirky cheerfulness followed in the first movement of Hindemith’s Oboe Sonata, in contrast the beautifully sustained notes in the second movement, played grippingly, despite the simplicity of the melody.

Leleux relished the assortment of characters in Poulenc’s Oboe Sonata, opening with a nostalgic and almost schmoozy elegy, whose sudden pauses drew chuckles from the audience. This was before switching to the frantic scherzo movement, played with foot-tapping energy, followed by the heartfelt, slow finale, where the long-held notes that closed the piece were utterly chilling.

With pianist Eric Le Sage, Leleux has found a perfect accompanist. Despite the piano being capable of a far louder sound than Leleux’s oboe, Le Sage was careful never to overwhelm his duo partner. Le Sage has an extraordinary ability to fly through tricky passages with apparent ease, which ensured that he never overshadowed Leleux’s often simpler oboe melodies. Even during his exciting stormy accompaniment of the second movement of Schumann’s Three Romances, Op. 94, Le Sage kept tight control over a passage that easily could have become domineering.

It was nevertheless difficult to take our eyes of Leleux, who certainly felt at ease moving around the stage. During the few, short piano interludes he would charmingly nod his head along with the music. But it was chiefly the beauty of his sound made it almost impossible to focus on anything else.