Leonidas Kavakos is a violinist so absolutely sober -almost glacial, in his stage disposition- that one would say that it is alien to everything, playing as if there was no audience and eventually with a pose of indifference.

And yet he is able to extract from his old instrument -the Stradivarius 'Willemotte', made in 1734- incisive sounds, excellently articulated, promoting a music flow of great naturalness that reaches the audience. For many music lovers, Johannes Brahms’ Concerto for violin is a total work: in addition to the inspired confection of its themes, and the intelligence with which they develop, it contains virtuous passages, orchestral intensity, references to folklore... A perfectly closed work on itself, in its three movements; contrasted movements, linked by an ardour that is expected to emerge, nuanced, in the reading of the London Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Simon Rattle. The event is completed with compositions by Claude Debussy and George Enescu, rarely scheduled in the same evening. The first, evocative of images based on colour, the second close in spirit to popular rhythms. Elements that seem to anticipate, gathered, that concertante piece.

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The Chiaroscuro Quartet, with the violinist Alina Ibragimova at the head, is one of the most interesting chamber ensembles of the moment. If the violinist has delighted us on several occasions as a soloist (with the interpretation, for example, of Bach's Sonatas and Partitas)

showing surprising precision and a full and rich nuance in tones -the one that she extracts from her instrument , a Anselm Bellosio of 1775, courtesy of Georg von Opel- as leader of the ensemble she ratifies the boldness and the expressiveness that his pose, on the other hand modest, does not allow to predict. Or perhaps it does. As a matter of fact, the Chiaroscuro Quartet reaped an unquestionable success at the Auditori de Barcelona, playing Beethoven and a transcription of Mozart’s Piano Concerto no. 12 with the same soloist. We are talking of Kristian Bezuidenhout, an interpreter who has recorded an important number of discs with the record Harmonia Mundi, and that is characterized by the spontaneous delicacy of his readings, that tend to be based on epochal criteria. On the occasion, however, he will face one of the topically romantic composers, such as Robert Schumann, after the first of the Razumovsky and works by the most classic (or even Baroque) romantic composer, Felix Mendelssohn, author of pieces for piano that eloquently titled "Songs without words". Interesting may be the fact of witnessing that other search for musical expression by Bezuidenhout, oblivious to the gallant rhythms and the strictly classical balance. One piece, Schumann’s Quintet with piano, op. 44, which is full of passion in each of his movements, being the slow one particularly emotional (In modo d'una marcia. Un poco largamente) in which the German composer walks the wire of minimalism to create a melody that threatens to establish forever in the memory of the listener.

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Camille Corot happens to be one of the masters of realism, recognized above all by the interest of reproducing nature in the open air, by capturing the nuances of light that Impressionism will exploit, applying movement to prints.

But in addition to that representation of the exterior Corot was a skilled portraitist. The art of portraiture is the art of interiority, which allows the personality to be seen or to show the psychology (real or not) of the person, communicated from their external features. The National Gallery of Washington offers an interesting exhibition with 45 paintings, created between the 30's and 70's of the 19th century, and organized in 3 large sections: dressed figures, nudes, and allegorical scenes of study. The visitor can appreciate the power of a brushstroke that creates volume, thanks to a conscious management of light and shadow, a procedure that will have a very clear influence on the work of Cézanne, but also of Braque and, therefore, Picasso.

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Ribera: Art of Violence is a premeditatedly excessive title. In fact, the spectator of our days will neither find any trace of the ultra-violence that some cinematographic works deploy with more or less artistic aims

-sometimes in an openly gratuitous way- nor is it likely to awaken the curiosity that fuels the networks social when proposing contents near the limits of bad taste, and that not infrequently go viral. What will be found in that exhibition is an excellent sample of the unfiltered representation of the aggressiveness that certain passages of the works of the western tradition reflect, on the part of the painter who has been hailed as the heir of the unmatched Caravaggio. We find again an extreme tension in many of his paintings, of religious themes (“violent depictions of saints and sinners. Ribera has historically been labelled as sadistic in his depictions of human pain and suffering”) but avoiding the extreme of the rupture, that is, without awakening in the spectator that repulsion that would disconnect him from the history actually represented. As it is known, baroque arts do not save in means to bring expressivity to the paroxysm of meaning, even applying resources such as trompe l'oeil that affects vision, making people doubt what is actually being seen (as real / represented). Here what is shown is stark, in pictures as in The Martyrdom of San Bartolomé, through a brushstroke generous in colours, pregnant and with dynamism, reminiscent of other illustrious by its way of fixing and vivifying the scenes it represents. The Guardian wrote about this exhibition: "Proves once and for all that Jusepe [sic] de Ribera belongs in the same company as Caravaggio and Rembrandt". We could add Peter Paul Rubens, if we think about his Saturn devouring his son.

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