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

Sunday, February 27, 2022

Costa Blanca arts update - No superlatives - L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in Alicante with Jonathan Nott and Emmanuel Pahud play Ibert and Mahler

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There are insufficient superlatives to describe the experience. L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in Alicante under Jonathan Nott played Ma...

Tuesday, February 22, 2022

The Crack-Up with Other Pieces and Stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald

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I doubt that F. Scott Fitzgerald intended that The Crack-Up with Other Pieces and Stories should ever be published, let alone read as a sing...

Sunday, February 20, 2022

Costa Blanca Arts Update - Shostakovich 5 and Symphonie Espagnole in ADDA, Alicante

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The fifth Symphony of Dmitri Shostakovich was reportedly “a Soviet artist's creative response to justified criticism”. That past critic...

Thursday, February 10, 2022

The Captive – aka The Prisoner by Marcel Proust

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The musings of an adolescent male, perhaps not a completely formed adult human being, if such a state is ever achieved by anyone privileged ...

Wednesday, February 9, 2022

Costa Blanca Arts Update - Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky in Alicante's ADDA

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Two concerts on consecutive days might be considered by some as a live event to far, especially when the concerts feature big, autobiograp...

Monday, February 7, 2022

Veronica Decides To Die by Paulo Coelho

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Veronica Decides To Die is a novel by Paulo Coelho. I write the review in English, though I read the book in Spanish, so it may be that ma...

Sunday, January 30, 2022

Saariaho's La Passion de Simone

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It's a comment both on current availability and prevailing mentality that I choose to write a piece about a television experience, albei...

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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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