Silence after music, again, as important as the music it is coloured by and follows.

It is in such silence, and just occasionally, that one regards the human condition, and thus one's own life, from a position beyond it. Well, I say beyond it, but this possibility is also part of it, isn't it, except that when one refers to the human condition one has in mind its bliss and blunder, its turmoil and calm, and I am talking about a regard that casts its gaze upon all of this gathered into a single whole. I should like to say that this regard is one of love, since that seems to be its quality, though it also takes the form of compassion.

I think I really do mean a perspective that looks quietly at the whole, often exemplified in a single scene. Thus it is to be contrasted with the real indignation that one feels about what is now being inflicted on the population of Gaza, and this, one might think, is an inescapable moral indignation, but the phenomenon and the response are also part of what one is sometimes aware of in the silence. Both, though, are capable of leading to action, and I wonder whether the transcendent perspective works towards peace and reconciliation, whereas the indignation inclines more to punishment and revenge, even though both seek justice, which is anyway a condition of peace and reconciliation. It would be a grotesque error and self-indulgence, though, to seek to cling to the contemplative aspect of this transcendent perspective at the expense of its active element which, I think, should sublimate (ie raise to a higher condition) the natural feelings of righteous indignation.

More generally, what is one to make of this capacity to be a witness of the whole, the whole nexus of cause and effect in human conduct? The most significant thing is that it is not neutral or 'disencchanted', it is from a point of view ...

And the music? I've been listening to Elizabeth Watts singing Schubert. most of the songs unfamiliar and yet at moments deeply familiar as they evoke memories of other songs by him in moments of the melody.