Tag: music
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Disquiet, defiance and the point of no return in Mozart’s Don Giovanni
There are fewer more dramatic moments in opera than the ending of Don Giovanni, when the title character refuses to repent for his sins and gets pulled down into hell by a chorus of demons. However, this showstopping coup de théâtre is in fact a footnote to the oft-overlooked actual narrative and musical climax, which…
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Philosophy and cosmology
I’ve decided it’s time to improve the consistency of my writing and practice makes perfect, as they say. So, starting from today, I’m going to a write a blog post every day for thirty days (excluding weekends and holidays). By my calculation, this means the last post in the thirty day sequence will come on…
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Standard sirens, Cobaya and Beethoven’s 9th: Madrid week two
As of tomorrow, I’ll have been in Madrid for two weeks! Time really does fly. The weather is still freezing and there’s fresh snow on the hills behind campus (as you can hopefully see in the header image, which I took on my commute this morning). This week I made a proper start on the…
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Surviving burn out and the post-paper blues
I published my first paper at the end of February. I won’t beat about the bush: writing this paper was exhausting. I’d had unrealistic expectations for how quickly I’d get publishable results, and consequently every delay to our draft felt like a disaster. At first we were going to be ready by July (2018). Then…
Natalie B. Hogg 