In a very interesting overlap of planes, a background projection displays texts and images of the painter, with a curious focus on his tumultuous relationship with women, so difficult on a personal level and so explosive in his artistic work. There are also paintings by the Dutch artist Erik Renssen, whose works stem from the Picasso-esque world which he recreates and reconstructs, concluding with various pieces created by artificial intelligence (AI), currently capable of producing images that appear decorative, forced, and somewhat lifeless, still characteristic of a system that continues to learn and evolve, which will ultimately require redefining the boundaries of human creativity.

What is unsettling is the ambient tension reinforced by the Dianto Reed Quintet after breaking some basic concert conventions in relation to its own protocol, which transforms the performance into a kind of choreography that constantly rearranges the positioning of the performers on stage and in their excursions beyond it, with the added incentive of creating a new spatiality, or in other words, expanding the listening points of view.

At the core of the programme is Stravinsky’s very brief work ‘Pour Picasso’, which reappears at the end of the programme, reworked as ‘Song, fugue and groove on a tune of Stravinsky’, a commission for this project by Julian Schneemann (1992), a keyboardist and composer open to diverse aesthetics with roots in classical music, jazz, pop, and African music. His most significant project, ‘Caravan’, connects worlds from east to west and traverses heterogeneous repertoires, enjoying significant exposure, with a recording to bear witness to it.

The concert also featured a selection from Stravinsky’s suite ‘Pulcinella’, Satie’s ‘Parade’, and another selection from the two suites of ‘The Three-Cornered Hat’ by Manuel de Falla, all arranged by Max Knigge and Arjan Linker. All three composers collaborated with Picasso and were also portrayed by him.

Dianto Reed Quintet’s interpretation of these pieces is truly remarkable: precise, musically rigorous, and so well-executed in its gestures that it all gives an impression of a mask, a strict point, though ultimately broken by the warmth of the performance.

In Santander, it was particularly enhanced by the conditions of the auditorium at the Centro Botín, designed by Renzo Piano, where the wall at the back of the stage is an enormous glass window, allowing the audience to observe the bay and its maritime activity while listening (and seeing and reading) to the concert: a curious dislocation between the apparent serenity of the landscape and the active engagement of its observers.