Monthly Archives: July 2016
Mahler 3, Haitink 50 not out; or, A Good Death
Some years ago (it looks like it was 2011), I decided I wouldn’t go to see another Prom conducted by Bernard Haitink. He looked frail and I felt he deserved a decent retirement. This year I decided to U-turn on … Continue reading
Figaro, Figaro, Figaro
When I looked through the Proms season I spotted Rossini’s The Barber of Seville and wondered whether Dad would be interested. He said yes, so I braved the Albert Hall website on the day booking opened and got some pretty … Continue reading
Proms Novelties
I expected the queue to be much shorter for Prom 7, and it was, right up until the last hour or so. I easily got a space on the rail for a concert of unfamiliar works by familiar composers. I … Continue reading
The only water in the forest is the river
Book Review: The Time Traveler’s Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger I picked this up a few months back in the Mortimer station book-swap library. There’s a danger with well-known titles that they come with expectations, so I tried to approach this … Continue reading
(Almost) Nothing we can’t hum there
The First Night of the Proms is generally a popular affair, and this year it also had a popular programme, so it was no surprise that I found myself some way down the queue. The afternoon was passed with a … Continue reading
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Book Review: Deciphering the Cosmic Number – The Strange Friendship of Wolfgang Pauli and Carl Jung, by Arthur I Miller Holiday reading can be tricky: if you go for something too light, you might run out; if you go for … Continue reading
Maškaradă
Life goes on. The concert at the Sheldonian in Oxford was titled as Moscow Nights, after one of the pieces, but the overall programme was to me more reminiscent of the Maškaradă album by Taraf de Haïdouks, a classical but … Continue reading
First and Second Law (of Thermodynamics) 