Artists’ workspaces are often revealing. Think of maverick painter Maggi Hambling’s studio, which she once described as “the largest ash-tray in Suffolk”. Or the dark, solid Brontë parsonage on the edge of the windswept Pennines. Or Gustav Mahler’s composing huts where he retreated from urban life – and his punishing conducting schedule – to concentrate on producing symphonies.
The thought of Mahler constructing those vast musical architectures in such tiny spaces can be mind-boggling, but it’s nothing in comparison to the cognitive dissonance of visiting Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir at home in rural Surrey.
