Courses in London & Online

We will be looking at novels from recent years that explore various dimensions of culture and society, reading and discussing a brief and careful selection of novels in English from several countries, diverse in style and genre. Titles include Piranesi, Susanna Clarke's mysterious and 'weird' tale of secrets and lost texts, William Boyd's Trio, which follows the life of an actress, a film producer, and a writer obsessed with the suicide of Virginia Woolf, Small Things Like These by Clare Keegan, in which a coal merchant becomes involved with the fate of a pregnant teenager trapped in a Magdalene Laundry, and Michelle de Kretser's Theory and Practice follows the academic trajectory of a Sri Lankan feminist researching the novels of Woolf.

From the late-eighteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries, the German Lied developed and blossomed as a musical genre for amateurs, professionals, homes and concert halls. We trace its history through some of its most important composers.

This course has a scheduled break week on 29 Oct 2025.

Mozart’s music has come to stand for the greatest and most beautiful aspects of the Western classical tradition. But who was he? And what exactly did he do? Come and discover more about this famous Vienese composer. break week 29 Oct 2025.

Some friendships, including with people of the same sex, may become so intense as to be love, though not necessarily of a sexual kind. We will look at some great poets who have had this experience and expressed it brilliantly in their work: Shakespeare and Byron, Tennyson and Emily Dickinson, Arthur Rimbaud and Thomas Hardy, C P Cavafy and the great 20th century Russian poet Some Marina Tsvetaeva, and finally our recent Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy.

Study symphonies coming up in the 2026–27 season, we will discuss their composition, context and style, and then hear a selection ofmusical examples. NB Break week: 30 May 2027.