Monday, November 07, 2016

Sunday Afternoon

November 7th, 2016

It was yesterday -  Sunday afternoon, -  and I was late tuning into 
Radio City on Knowledge Network.

It is one of the highlights of my Sunday, and how could I have forgotten -
should I blame the time change???
We have said goodbye to Daylight saving and now it is lighter in the morning,
 but darkness falls earlier and the evenings are long.

In any event, I did join Radio City soon after the program started 
and was delighted with the Orchestrae de Paris
as they performed Mozart and Haydn, 
and most especially with the legendary pianist,
Menahem Pressler.

At 92, and the survivor of a threatening aneurysm, his performance 
was amazing and impressive.  
I believe the program was recorded in the past, 
and perhaps at that time he may have been only 90 years of age,
 but there was a sweet smile as he played,
 and his lips moved in concentration as he lived the music. 

 And what's a couple of years after all those decades...?  

Well, I can tell you, there is a difference, and I speak from experience..  
two years ago I could operate a can opener, 
but now I am on the look-out for an electric appliance 
that requires one only to press a button!!

For an encore Pressler played Debussy's Claire de la Lune.
He smiled a lot at the audience,
and I smiled a lot with pleasure
and the chance to hear him perform....

Here is a short video of him making his debut with the Berlin Philharmonic in 2014 
  Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 17.


I knitted a bit while I watched, and sighed contentedly when it was over.

There was still a little time before supper,
so I picked up the book that I am trying to finish before a
Monday night meeting of the Book Club
where we will be discussing "The Pearl that broke its Shell" by Nadia Hashimi,
- a generational story portraying Afghanistan
'in all its perplexing, enigmatic glory'.

An absorbing and troubling book, when one considers
that the lives of some of the women in Afghanistan
are fraught with male domination and sometimes cruelty.  
As I read towards the end of the book
I am comforted by the indications
 that change is happening in the cities
and perhaps even in the villages as women grow more courageous 
and men more enlightened. 

I still have 62 pages left to read,
 and my thoughts to put into order....

"Nadia Hashima left Afghanistan in the 1970's
and was raised in the United States.
In 2002 she visited Afghanistan for the first time
with her parents".

She is a pediatrician and lives with her family
 in suburban Washington D.C.




4 comments:

Sallie (FullTime-Life) said...

Beautiful concert; how fortunate to have this great television programming. I don't think we have anything like that available regularly -- even on PBS. You have a good book club there too -- I'm not sure how I'd do with a Book Club as I am an undisciplined reader. Sometimes I start a book, get out of the mood and go to another. I often have a couple of different ones going on -- often a memoir or non-fiction and then a light novel or mystery. It would probably be good for me to have a schedule.

Hildred said...

Sallie, about half the people at the Book Club today did a marathon finishing right at the end, which probably indicates that they are undisciplined readers too, - I finished mine at 6 p.m. - Book Club meets at 7 p.m.... You are not alone

The Weaver of Grass said...

The plight of women in so many countries is cause for concern. I think we are so lucky here in the West in a more enlightened society.

It is so pleasing to reading of music and such a wonderful keyboard player when most of the talk from 'over the pond' is of nothing but today's election - so thank you
for such a treat Hildred.

Reader Wil said...

Thank you for this treat! I love this concert very much. Fortunately we have also some channels on TV for classic music.Have a great weekend.