The myth goes that Mozart did not like the flute. A strange paradox for a composer who dedicated three Concertos to it (including one for flute and harp), four Quartets for flute and strings and whose last opera, Die Zauberflöte, is dedicated to this supposedly unloved instrument. No doubt Emmanuel Pahud's magic flute will persuade us otherwise.

Strongly disturbed by the Revolution, the evolution of music in France did not happen through the symphony as was the case in Germany. With his Symphony in D minor, premiered twenty years after the Franco-Prussian War, the naturalized Belgian composer César Franck gave France a breathtaking work based on the French and Germanic traditions as a symbol of a fragile peace regained before the catastrophe of 1914.