Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

28 April 2026

Last Saturday's Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert at Spinney Theatre in Northampton was the third time we have played with the brilliant young pianist Julian Chan. Following stunning performances of the ‘Piano Concerto No 5’ by Saint-Saens (reviewed here in February 2023) and Amy Beach’s ‘Piano Concerto’ (reviewed here in July 2024), Julian joined us again on Saturday to play Rachmaninoff's 'Piano Concerto No. 3'. Julian gave a truly thrilling performance of this incredibly emotional showpiece, which received a rapturous reception from both the audience and the orchestra. It was a pleasure and privilege to accompany him. We started the concert with España - the popular rhapsody for orchestra by Emmanuel Chabrier. After the interval we played Arnold Bax's 'Symphony No 2'. In his pre-concert talk Eric McElroy, a trustee of the Sir Arnold Bax Society, told us that there were only two performances of Bax symphonies scheduled anywhere in the world this year - a performance of the Sixth Symphony in Tokyo a few weeks ago and our performance of the Second in Northampton. Writing in The Guardian a few days before our concert, Tom Service bemoaned the continued absence of Bax from the Proms schedule, saying: "There may currently be no less fashionable music than the hyper-romantic symphonies and orchestral works of Arnold Bax. The British composer’s music featured in pretty well every Proms season throughout the 1930s and 40s and early 50s, yet he has been the rarest of visitors to the Royal Albert Hall since then. When was the last Bax symphony heard at the Proms, you ask? 2011! Far too long for a fan like me." NSO performed Bax's First Symphony two years ago (reviewed here in March 2024) but the Second Symphony (completed in 1926) is a very different work. As we started to rehearse, it seemed incredibly challenging - chromatically unpredictable and rhythmically complicated. Yet the music felt romantic rather than avant-garde. I enjoyed getting to grips with the symphony - initially as an intellectual exercise but gradually coming to appreciate the piece as a whole. Bax draws on many different musical influences: there are elements of the symphony that sound like some of his contemporaries, including Vaughan Williams, Stravinsky and the Celtic-inspired music of Granville Bantock. But Bax mixes these styles to create a consistent and satisfying whole, with all the thematic material of the symphony introduced in the first section of the opening movement. And there are some beautiful passages, particularly at the beginning of the second movement. I think our performance on Saturday went really well, making sense of what had appeared to be a challenging piece and winning many of our audience over to Bax - a tribute to the excellent work of our conductor John Gibbons. The symphony starts and ends with the same slow melancholy cor anglais fanfare, wonderfully played by Harriet Brown, providing an unresolved epilogue at the end of the final movement as the music fades to silence. The conductor Vernon Handley, who recorded all seven Bax symphonies with the BBC Philharmonic, said: "He knows he's leaving the Second Symphony for something to be said in his next symphony". I'm looking forward to discovering what resolution awaits when we tackle Bax Symphony No. 3 in a couple of years' time.

'Die Kaiserin' by Katharina Eyssen

24 April 2026

Having recently returned from a week in Vienna (which I wrote about here earlier in April 2026) we have been enjoying watching 'Die Kaiserin' (The Empress) - the Netflix German-language TV drama about Empress Elisabeth of Austria. Set, and filmed, in some of the Hapsburg palaces we visited in our holiday, the series tells the story of the marriage of  Bavarian duchess Elisabeth 'Sisi' von Wittelsbach and Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria - the outline of which we discovered during our visit to the Schonbrunn Palace. Katharina Eyssen's dramatisation, set almost entirely within the imperial court, feels like a more serious cousin to 'The Great' ‘- Tony McNamara’s irreverent take on the story of Catherine the Great (reviewed here in March 2021) but also reminded me of some aspects of 'Game of Thrones'. Devrim Lingnau is great as Elisabeth, delicately poised on the point of transition between naive innocence and calculated politics - and showing the Empress's changing moods and growing understanding with tiny incremental changes in her facial expressions. 

'Henry V' by William Shakespeare

17 April 2026

On Saturday we were at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon to see Tamara Harvey’s new RSC production of ‘Henry V’. It felt particularly timely to see Shakespeare’s best-known exploration of the nature of war during current arguments about the definition of a ‘just war’. Tamara Harvey’s period dress production doesn’t directly allude to current conflicts but I was struck by the exchange the disguised king has with some of his soldiers on the eve of the Battle of Agincourt. Testing his men, Henry says “Methinks I could not die anywhere so contented as in the King’s company, his cause being just and his quarrel honorable” to which Williams replies “That’s more than we know” and Bates adds “Ay, or more than we should seek after, for we know enough if we know we are the King’s subjects. If his cause be wrong, our obedience to the King wipes the crime of it out of us.” Alfred Enoch (who we saw as Pericles in the 2024 RSC production, also directed by Tamara Harvey - reviewed here in August 2024) plays Henry V as a thoughtful, playful king - showing glimpses of the Prince Hal we see in the Henry IV plays. But his gentle, realistic style means the two famous rallying speeches to his troops lack the usual rousing passion. Nevertheless, it’s an impressive production with a massive cast, and the battle scenes use balletic movement (choreographed by Movement Director Annie-Lunnette Deakin-Foster and Fight Director Kate Waters) to brilliant effect. 

'Nonesuch' by Francis Spufford

10 April 2026

Francis Spufford's debut novel ‘Golden Hill’ (reviewed here in August 2017) remains one of my favourite books - a brilliant tour de force set in Manhattan in 1746: beautifully written, historically fascinating with wonderfully drawn characters and a mesmeric plot. He has followed 'Golden Hill' with three more historical novels, each set in a different period and each exploring different literary genres and setting himself increasingly ambitious narrative challenges. None has been as satisfying as 'Golden Hill', but 'Light Perpetual' (reviewed here in July 2021) and ‘Cahokia Jazz’ (reviewed here in February 2024) were both fascinating and beautifully written. In his fourth novel 'Nonesuch' (which I have just finished reading as an unabridged audio book, narrated by Lydia Wilson) Francis Spufford steps into the world of fantasy. Set in London in the early years of World War II, from the start it is clear that this is going to be a realistically described London but also one in which magic is present - reminding me of Ben Aaronovitch’s ‘Rivers of London’ novels (reviewed here in June 2018 and August 2022). 'Nonesuch' starts brilliantly and grippingly, as well as being wonderfully laced together with Francis Spufford's beautiful descriptive phrases. But as the novel progressed I felt he had maybe taken on too many different themes at the same time. 'Nonesuch' is a fantasy novel but it is also an account of the reality of being in London at the start of the war, a history of the development of the war, an exploration of economics and the stock market and a reflection of the possibility of time travel. This results in cliffhanger moments of magical peril being diffused by lengthy passages about the financial markets. Nevertheless, Francis Spufford is always an entertaining, clever writer and 'Nonesuch' is an unusual and enthralling read. The picture he paints of everyday life in London during the Blitz is fascinating, reminding me of 'The Night Watch' by Sarah Waters (reviewed here in January 2008). I look forward to seeing where Francis Spufford turns his attention next. 

'Pigs in Heaven' by Barbara Kingsolver

2 April

Having loved Barbara Kingsolver's 1988 novel 'The Bean Trees' (reviewed here in June 2025), I was thrilled to discover that she had written a sequel. ‘Pigs in Heaven’ (published in 1993) shows us what has happened to Taylor and her adopted daughter Turtle three years after we left them settled in Tuscon. They are soon unsettled again and back in the car on an extended road trip as Barbara Kingsolver sensitively explores the implications of Turtle’s Cherokee heritage. She brilliantly constructs a seemingly impossible situation, managing to make the reader simultaneously sympathetic to characters with directly opposing points of view (like Andrea Levy in 'Small Island' (reviewed here in June 2019) or Jonathan Franzen in ‘The Corrections’ (reviewed here in February 2015)). But Barbara Kingsolver’s cast of quirky Dickensian characters are all charmingly likeable and you always feel they are going to find a heart-warming solution. 'Pigs in Heaven' is beautifully written and cleverly plotted. It explores the painful realities of working class life while creating a life-affirming story.

Vienna

2 April 2026

We had a lovely time in Vienna last week, visiting the Schonbrunn Palace - the summer residence of the Hapsburgs - where we walked through the room where the six year old Mozart first performed for the Empress. We enjoyed the Gustav Klimt collection at the Belvedere Palace and walked through the Prater amusement park to see the famous Ferris wheel. We went to the Musikverein to see a great concert by The Orchestral Association of the Society of Friends of Music - Vienna's oldest amateur orchestra (founded in 1859 - 11 years before the Musikverein opened). We also visited the stunning Kunsthistoriches Museum and the Albertina - a lovely art gallery within a beautiful Hapsburg palace. We had a day trip to Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, where the Old Town is very pretty, with pastel coloured buildings and open squares. We also went by train to the small town of Melk (population 2,000), set on the banks of the Danube in Lower Austria, which is dominated by the dramatic, imposing and enormous Benedictine Monastery, Sift Melk, which sits on a rock, high above the town. Back in Vienna we managed to get cheap standing tickets for the Vienna State Opera where we saw 'The Bartered Bride'. We were in the ground floor standing area at the back of the stalls with a surprisingly good view. It was great to see the inside of the opera house and to see the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. You can see a few of my holiday photos here. 

'Songs of Stolen Children' by Daughters of Donbas

20 March 2026

Daughters of Donbas is a music and human rights project highlighting the stories of children who have been abducted from occupied regions in eastern Ukraine and taken to Russia. Led by the Ukrainian-Canadian singer Marichka, the Daughters of Donas debut album 'Songs of Stolen Children' is a beautiful, engaging and varied collection influenced by Ukrainian folk traditions, indie pop, jazz and tango. Haunting acapella female vocal harmonies are accompanied by a string quartet and traditional Ukrainian instruments including bandura and okaryna. The vocal harmonies reminded me of a range of other Eastern European folk-influenced music, including the Warsaw Village Band (reviewed here in September 2008) and the Eva Quartet from Bulgaria (reviewed here in February 2014). You can listen to the opening track of the Daughters of Donbas album at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrWmPhH3VWk  

'The Ministry of Time' by Kaliane Bradley

13 March 2026

‘The Ministry of Time’ by Kaliane Bradley (which I've just finished reading as an unabridged audio book narrated by Katie Leung and George Weightman) is a very clever and engaging time travel story that contemplates what it would be like in practical reality to have travelled from a different time. It is set in London in the near future, when time travel has become a possibility. The Ministry has decided to experiment cautiously by bringing individuals from history through a time portal to the present day, carefully choosing people known from historical records to be about to die, so as to avoid any consequences for the timeline from their removal from the past. One of those chosen, Commander Graham Gore, was a sailor on the ill-fated Franklin expedition to discover the Northwest Passage in 1845 - the story of which was familiar to me from the 2018 TV series, 'The Terror', which told the remarkable story of the two ships Erebus and Terror trapped in the ice in the Arctic for several years. The bulk of Kaliane Bradley's book explores how Commander Gore and his fellow 'ex-pats' from different moments in history would cope assimilating into 21st century Britain with the help of their Bridges - individuals from the Ministry assigned to look after them and induct them into modern life. It's a fascinating and beautifully written description of what it might really be like to be placed out of time. Graham Gore's Bridge is the unnamed narrator, a young British Cambodian woman whose job is to introduce the 19th century sailor to modern technology and sensibilities. It's a beautifully drawn, funny and moving odd-couple romance, which kept my attention throughout. But I always felt there must be something more to the plot, expecting further twists resulting from the availability of time travel. And when these twists did arrive they were very effective, genuinely surprising me. But they came very late in the narrative, with the final chapters feeling like a sudden avalanche of exposition that was quite hard to take in. Nevertheless the Ministry of Time is a fascinating and unusual science fiction story exploring serious and adult themes with the time travellers acting as an analogy for immigration, integration and colonialism. It's a brilliant first novel by Bradley and I look forward to seeing what she writes next.