Four Double Basses in Concert

Italian violinist Fabio Biondi – famous especially for his interpretation of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons with his orchestra, Europa Galante – refuses to be compartmentalised. We take a look back at the career of a musician blessed with a supple mind and an extraordinary talent for the Baroque violin.

What could have prompted Gustav Mahler to compose a work as unclassifiable as this one? Written between 1907 and 1908, a pivotal period in Mahler's life, The Song of the Earth occupies a special place within his oeuvre. It combines the “fin de siècle” spirit with the fascination for the exotic that was spreading amongst his peers at the time. Vienna was in turmoil when this music was composed, and the piece oscillates between the notions of farewell and new beginnings. With a lot of layers to peel back, The Song of the Earth definitely merits a closer look.

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.