BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/Rumon Gamba/Elizabeth Watts
(Chandos)
The French composer – a contemporary of Debussy’s – wrote slender but perfectly-formed pieces of beguiling beauty

The welcome rediscovery of Mel Bonis continues, and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and conductor Rumon Gamba do full justice to her finely crafted, perfumed orchestral music on this new studio recording. Bonis was a classmate of Debussy, and the best of her works here compare to his in terms of instrumental intrigue, albeit on a smaller scale.

Bonis’s most ambitious works for orchestra were the Trois Femmes de Légende, written around 1909. In these beguiling, brief tone poems, Ophelia emerges as a kind of tragic water nymph, Salome as a princess from a far-off, exotic east. Even more mystery surrounds Cleopatra, who is portrayed in music that is sensuous yet uneasy, with quiet writing for the bass instruments underpinning her languid melody.

Huishoudens zullen voorlopig moeten wennen aan sterke fluctuaties in de energieprijzen, zoals dat de afgelopen tijd het geval was. Dat zegt Martijn Hagens, de nieuwe topman van energieleverancier Eneco, in een toelichting op de jaarcijfers. Vooral mensen met dynamische energiecontracten voelen de prijsschommelingen.

"De energiemarkt is behoorlijk volatiel. De schommelingen zijn het gevolg van vraag en aanbod op een specifiek moment en het beperkte vermogen dat wij nu hebben om energie op te slaan. Dus dat betekent dat wij hier op korte termijn aan moeten wennen", zei Hagens.

Op de langere termijn kan de inzet van batterijen, zowel grootschalige opslagsystemen als thuisbatterijen, deze schommelingen helpen dempen. "Onze verwachting is dat de prijsverschillen daardoor weer kleiner worden. Op dit moment zijn die verschillen echter nog groot", zei de topman. De prijsschommelingen in de laatste maanden waren volgens hem het gevolg van het conflict in het Midden-Oosten.

europeanspaceagency posted a photo:

An exceptional heatwave is affecting countries across western Europe, with cities and regions of France, Spain and southern Italy experiencing unseasonal temperatures.

This image of land surface temperature was captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-3 mission on Wednesday, 23 June. The data were captured in the late morning, local time.

You can watch a video about this image here.

The colours shown on the image range from purples and deep reds (indicating surface temperatures up to 55ºC, seen in parts of central Spain, western France and northern Africa) to light blues that indicate lower surface temperatures in mountainous regions. Some areas were covered by cloud – shown in white.

The satellite sensed temperatures on land of 48ºC in Madrid, 44ºC in Rome and 46ºC in both Poitier in France and Zaragoza in Spain. The ground temperatures in northern Africa are visibly higher, with temperatures on the ground in Tunis reaching 49ºC. Because surfaces such as rock, sand and asphalt retain the heat, ground temperatures are considerably higher than air temperatures.

Sentinel-3 carries four instruments, including its Sea and Land Surface Temperature Radiometer (SLSTR) – a powerful and highly accurate sensor that measures temperatures over both land and sea. It detects heat stress over land and its data are used in agriculture as well as monitoring urban heat islands and wildfires.

The current European heatwave is caused by an atmospheric pattern of persistent high pressure – a ‘heat dome’ – which is trapped over Europe between low pressure systems on each side. Summer heat in Europe is not normally associated with El Niño and therefore, although satellite data have detected early signs of the El Niño phenomenon in the Pacific Ocean, it is not the driver behind the current temperatures in Europe.

Credits: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2026), processed by ESA; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo: