On the first week of the proms

With one exception, I've enjoyed all the concerts I've caught this week. My problem? Tuesday's performance of The Fairy Queen, which didn't even come close to working.

Not that I think the problem was with the performance so much as it was with the material. Erica Jeal in the Graun notes that there were huge gaps between the musical numbers and that the staging wasn't really enough to make up for this. How much worse, then, for those of us trying to listen on the radio...

Still, the rest of the week, especially the wonderfully choral singing from Cambridge, more than made up for it.

Another chapter done

Somehow, despite a heavy combination of work and near total exhaustion, I've managed to hold things together to knock out another rough — very rough! — chapter of my thesis in time for today's deadline. Even if I get nothing else out of my MA studies, at least it's convinced me of my ability to churn out bleeding chunks of semi-readable prose in an remarkably short time...