This uniquely cross-sectional approach to culture combines great art with great music, and examines the connections between the two. Each piece of music from the carefully chosen selection takes on a new dimension and provides a musical context to the work of leading painters and sculptors. This fascinating series, with a colour booklet including a chronology of the principal artistic and political developments of the period, broadens our view of the music itself.

Popular opinion has dealt harshly with Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640): there are too many gods and goddesses in his paintings and the women are too large. But through changing fashions, the strength and vigour of his work are still a marvel: in a Rubens even the darkness seems to glow. On this audio, the world of Rubens is given a musical perspective with a carefully chosen selection of pieces by the finest composers of his time. In the booklet, Hugh Griffith provides explanatory notes on his life and musical environment.

The various forms of art - visual art, architecture, literature, and music - develop at different times. Very often music is the last to adopt and absorb new sensibilities, while the visual arts lead. So it is salutary to discover, as we do in the absorbing booklet essay that accompanies the audio, how much Rubens in his imagination was ahead of the music of the time. How well did Rubens know Monteverdi at Mantua? Did he hear John Bull play at Antwerp Cathedral? These and other fascinating connections enrich both Rubens' art and the chosen music - by Susato, Dowland, Lobo, Monteverdi, Schutz, Bull, Gibbons, and Lawes.