Vernacular

As a proper manifesto of French romanticism, Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique marked the 19th century as much as Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring impacted the 20th. Composed in Paris − which at the time was a global crucible for artistic creation − these two masterpieces catapulted musical language into another dimension. On December 5th, 1830 the revolutionary work of 27-year-old Hector Berlioz deeply moved the musicians present in the small room of the old academy of music, among whom were Meyerbeer and Liszt, who were impressed by the extraordinary audacity of this piece presented just three years after Beethoven’s death.

For over 60 years the Argentinian pianist Martha Argerich has amazed audiences all over the world with her wild, impulsive playing and her constant risk-taking, overcoming every technical difficulty by turning each of her performances into a fascinating journey.

Picasso's modernist genius swiftly stretched beyond the pictorial and spread into music and dance, two art forms with which the Spanish painter always maintained a close relationship, to the point of influencing composer friends he met along the way.