Presenter:Stacey Rodda 盧廸思
MAY 2025 FOCUS: FRANCE
VIDEO PROMOTIONS ...
…connecting music to visual arts, literature, film and theatre while discovering the delights of these arts in different parts of the world
NEW
FOCUS: FRANCE
The Culture Show with Mr. Benjamin Cabouat, Consul for Culture, Education and Science in HK and Macao
The Culture Show with Mr. Benjamin Cabouat, Consul for Culture, Education and Science in HK and Macao
The Culture Show with Mr. Benjamin Cabouat, Consul for Culture, Education and Science in HK and Macao
PREVIOUS
The Culture Show with Mr. Timo Kantola, Consul General of Finland in Hong Kong
The Culture Show with Mr. Timo Kantola, Consul General of Finland in Hong Kong
The Culture Show with Ms. Alice Fratarcangeli, Director of the Italian Cultural Institute in Hong Kong and Macau
The Culture Show wirh Ms.Klára Jurčová, Consul General of the Czech Republic in Hong Kong
This week we revisit Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and examine the way music influenced his life and work.
Renoir's first love was for singing, not painting. Gounod took him under his wing. But painting eventually became his true passion. As a lover of music like most Impressionists, Renoir often represented musical themes in his work - piano playing, dancing and attendees of concerts and operas as in his famous ‘La Loge’. We will hear rarities like Poulenc playing Satie, and highlights from a few forgotten Offenbach operas.
ROSSETTI, LEIGHTON AND THE HARP
The visual arts have been influenced by music and musical instruments for as long as we can imagine. In this programme, we look at the unique aesthetic beauty of the harp featured in ever so many paintings.
La Ghirlandata (1873) by Dante Gabriel Rossetti is incredibly beautiful. In it, he uses deep, rich greens and golds for the woman’s robe and the lush foliage that surrounds her. Rossetti’s subject looks directly at the viewer while playing a gilded harp. Musical instruments figure prominently in Rossetti’s work. His Morning Music captures an intimate domestic scene complete with a musician playing a type of lute.
Edmund Blair Leighton’s The End of The Song (c. 1902) depicts one of the world’s greatest legends - the tragic tale of the forbidden but undying love between the Cornish knight Tristan and the Irish princess Isolde. In this painting, Tristan, a gifted harpist, has just serenaded his beloved Isolde with a song of love.
You can imagine the music to come…

Presenter:Stacey Rodda 盧廸思
This week we travel to Renaissance Italy to explore some of the masterpieces created by Leonardo da Vinci. To complement the art works discussed, we will be hearing music from the film score of LEONARDO da VINCI composed by Caroline Shaw featuring performances by the composer’s longtime collaborators Attacca Quartet, Sō Percussion, Roomful of Teeth and bassist John Patitucci. We also have music from a unique tribute to Da Vinci by the British ensemble I Fagiolini. Art historian and Da Vinci expert Martin Kemp teamed up with conductor Robert Hollingworth to use music to shine light on aspects of the 15th century genius’s body of work.
The worlds of art and music continue to collide…