Philip Spires commonplace book

I have kept a commonplace book for many years. It's a place where scraps of impressions are filed for future reflection. It's not a diary, it's just a mental scrapbook, concentrating on book reviews, concert reviews, visual arts and some occasional pieces on travel. It is also a place where I occasionally reflect on what I write. Details of my books can be found at http://www.philipspires.co.uk

Showing posts with label dvorak. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 10, 2025

Denia International Piano Festival Programme 2 oct Duo Bringuier-Monakh

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Sunday, April 28, 2024

The Philharmonia with Suzuki and Queyras in Schumann and Dvorak - another case of "no superlatives"

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Some time ago, for a review of the concert in Alicante’s ADDA auditorium, I used the headline “No superlatives”. I chose the words not becau...

Saturday, April 22, 2023

The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra with Narek Hakhnazarayan under Vasily Petrenko in Dvorak and Tchaikovsky at ADDA, Alicante

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Mixing the familiar with the less familiar is a common programming tool. The popular work brings them in, and you broaden the audience’s tas...

Thursday, January 26, 2023

Musical perfection - the Bamberger Symphoniker, Jakub Hrusa, and Patricia Kopatchinskaja

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Many years ago, when I was a student, I, along with many others, bought a new stereo system and we regularly listened to chosen LPs to asses...

Sunday, October 16, 2022

Campogrande, Prokofiev and Dvorak in Alicante

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The placing of the world premiere alongside establish repertoire is not itself unusual. What was unusual about ADDA Sinfonica’s latest conce...

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About Me

philipspires: I was born in Wakefield and was brought up in Sharslton, a mining Village. I went to London University and then became a maths teacher, working initially as a volunteer teacher in Kenya. I spent sixteen years in London, in Balham and Islington. In 1992, I left Britain for Brunei and then Zayed University in Abu Dhabi. I currently live in La Nucia, near Benidorm in Spain. I am interested in the relationship between nature and nurture, birthright and experience. Themes of culture and identity and their relation to economic and social roles underpin my writing. What we are born into relates to what we become, but we are rarely in control. What others do, our interests and intellects and the way we choose to earn a living, all of these shape us into what we become. It may be that culture is the sum of all assumptions that others make on our behalf, whereas identity represents our reactions to them. I did a PhD on the effects of education in economic development in the Philippines. I was President of Alfas del Pi Music Society for twelve years.

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