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

Tuesday, November 29, 2022

Óscar Esplá – music in context

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Some artists seem to be inextricably linked to places. Henry Moore’s legacy is in Leeds, where he studied, but was not born. Barbara Hepwort...

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  Day by A. L. Kennedy is a complex at times perhaps over a complex novel about an individual’s experience of and response to war. It is set...
Saturday, November 26, 2022

Fumiaki Miura plays Mendelssohn and Mozart with ADDA, Alicante - undertstated perfection

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  “Less is more” is an expression that I have often heard when I have proffered criticisms of the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Usually ...
Saturday, November 12, 2022

Claus Peter Flor and Milan Symphony and Chorus in Verdi's Requiem, ADDA, Alicante

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A performance of Verdi’s Requiem is more like a visit to an awe-inspiring monument than the experience of a piece of music. It’s a work that...
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...
Friday, October 14, 2022

El balcón en invierno by Luis Landero

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El balcón en invierno by Luis Landero is beautiful, if at times frustrating book. It could all be said much more simply, succinctly and perh...
Wednesday, October 12, 2022

Europe Since Napoleon by David Thomson

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  Some time ago and in relation to a different book, I wrote a review that in essence began, “Occasionally, just occasionally, one comes acr...
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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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