Sometimes you don’t have to go to Florence, Milan or any other great cultural centre to experience something extraordinary. Sometimes you simply have to walk into your local village.
That was certainly my experience yesterday in Benabbio the village perched high to the south of Bagni di Lucca and, with its castle, the former stronghold of the Lupari clan.
The occasion was a concert in the beautiful Romanesque church of Santa Maria Assunta, presented by the Fondazione Michel de Montaigne under its new director, Agnese Benedetti. And it was particularly fitting that Agnese should be presenting the concert, because the magnificent work hanging behind the musicians was the subject of her own doctoral research.

The Benabbio Triptych, painted by Baldassarre di Biagio between 1469 and 1472, is a remarkable work in the history of Luccan art. It stands at a fascinating point between the late Gothic tradition and the emerging Renaissance, and its presence gave the whole concert an extraordinary visual dimension.

For the entire performance, the musicians had this great fifteenth-century masterpiece behind them.
The programme itself was inspired: Mozart, Haydn and Kodály, performed by the violinist Christina Schuetz and cellist Joseph Myer Dawson.

We began in the elegant, balanced world of the Classical style, with Mozart and Haydn. There was the refinement, wit and conversational quality that makes chamber music from this period so endlessly enjoyable.
Then came Kodály, and suddenly the musical landscape changed completely.
His Duo for Violin and Cello, Op. 7, belongs to another world: more angular, earthy and experimental, with Hungarian folk influences, unusual harmonies, fierce rhythmic exchanges and an extraordinary exploration of the possibilities of the two instruments.
What impressed me most was the way Christina and Joseph moved effortlessly between these worlds. They understood what each composer required and handled each style brilliantly. It was almost like watching the development of chamber music before our ears: from the elegance and balance of the Classical tradition to the much more adventurous language of the twentieth century.
I was particularly interested in Joseph’s background because of my own fascination with Kodály’s cello music especially with his sonata for solo cello an extraordinary piece which I first heard played by Janos Starker on a Saga recording. Joseph mentioned that Starker recorded the Sonata four times and had played it to Kodaly when still a teenager.
Before devoting herself to music, Christina Schuetz had worked as a solicitor specialising in international arbitration. To move from such a demanding professional career into serious musical training, and then to become such an accomplished violinist, is an extraordinary achievement.
But there was another, rather unexpected connection for me in this concert.
Christina had previously played at Charlton House in southeast London.
That immediately brought two very different places in my life together. If you read my blog, you will know that I have written quite a few accounts of concerts and musical events at Charlton House. It is a place with which I have long associated music, history and cultural discovery.
And suddenly, here we were in a Romanesque church in Benabbio, high in the Apennines of Italy, listening to the same violinist who had previously played at Charlton House in southeast London.
South London and the Apennines had somehow met in Benabbio.
After the concert we went next door to the Museo di Arte Sacra di Benabbio, where we could see more of the extraordinary artistic heritage of the village.

The violinist at Benabbio’s concert had mentioned to a friend of ours who attended the concert that she had spotted a cat in one of the paintings in the village museum. Our friend subsequently told Sandra, and Sandra told me. She even took a photograph of the painting so that I could have a closer look. I examined it carefully — and discovered that there were actually two cats hiding in the picture! And, being unable to resist a little detective work, I went one step further and discovered who had painted them: Girolamo Scaglia a renowned seventeenth century Luccan painter who was a pupil of Pietro Paolini. What charmingly fluffy cats and here they are!

And this is what made the whole afternoon so special.
Within a few steps of one another we had medieval and Renaissance art, Romanesque architecture and some of the finest chamber music of the eighteenth and twentieth centuries. The Triptych itself, with its mixture of late Gothic and Renaissance elements, seemed almost to provide a visual counterpart to the musical journey from Mozart and Haydn to Kodály.
There is sometimes an assumption that if you want “high culture”, you have to travel to a major city.
Yesterday demonstrated the opposite.
You can find extraordinary art and music in places like Benabbio, provided somebody has the imagination to bring them together — and an audience willing to appreciate them.

Postscript.
The concert in Benabbio, which we attended on 23 August, was included in the programme of Musica sulle Apuane, but it was actually the result of a collaboration between several musical and cultural organisations. Entitled “Young Musicians in Concert”, the event was organised in collaboration with the Felice Palma Music High School in Massa, the Lunigiana International Music Festival, and the Michel de Montaigne Foundation of Bagni di Lucca, with the cooperation of the Parish of Benabbio.
Musica sulle Apuane therefore presented the concert as part of its programme, while the young musicians came from the project organised by the Lunigiana International Music Festival. The concert, held in the Church of Santa Maria Assunta in Benabbio, was a lovely example of the way different musical and cultural organisations in the area can work together.

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