Sleep, a Market and a String Quartet


Wednesday, January 8, 2020

We were all so exhausted we decided to sleep as long as we could.  Well, Leah slept 13 ½ hours from 11:00 PM until we woke her at 12:30 PM.  Phenomenal.

Jerusalem is booming.  Outside our apartment from another part of the balcony is this view of the Russian Orthodox church, and three cranes:


A cold front has come through and the weather is miserable with rain, heavy at times, and wind with temperatures in the high 40s and a prediction of possible snow. Ugh.  Outdoor activities are not possible.  After breakfast we took a taxi to the Mahane Yehuda market.  This is a covered (but still outdoor temperature) huge market with meat, produce, spices, and just about anything else you might want.  We wandered.



Here are some fancy spices:



There are loads of pomegranates for sale:



A poster of Bibi presides over this shop:



There are enormous displays of sweets, mostly various kinds of baklava:



More kinds of halvah than I knew existed:



Radishes the size of small grapefruit:



As the rain was intermittent at this point, we walked back to the apartment, getting pretty well soaked as we did.  We dried off and went to a great local Italian restaurant where we had an early and delicious dinner, and then took a taxi to the Jerusalem Music Center where we had tickets.  When I bought them on the interned, I wasn’t sure what exactly it was to be, but two Schubert quartets played by the Carmel Quartet were on the agenda.  And, as best as I could figure, there was more and tonight’s program was to be in English.

The program was indeed a lecture/performance.  The violist of the quartet spoke about Schubert, his life, the musical influences (along with performance snippets).  One of the pieces to be played was a very early string quartet written when Schubert was 16, the other was his very famous “Death and the Maiden” quartet.  All was wonderful, and the performances were stellar.  We all enjoyed them greatly.


 The forecast for tomorrow is awful, so it will be a museum day.  More then.

Comments

  1. Ralph P. LockeJanuary 8, 2020 at 2:14 PM

    Sounds like a wonderful concert--just right after a lovely Italian meal (and maybe some halvah and baklavah earlier in the day)! Interesting that the talk was in English--I guess they know that they get more tourists and natives at many of their events. I'm not used to this. I suppose it's like the guided tours of European cathedrals--English has become the de facto common language, which everybody (including the tour guides) naturally gravitate to. But I haven't encountered it in the musical world in non-English-speaking countries before. Of course, Israelis have to get good at English, because they speak a language that is so little known elsewhere.
    I went to YouTube and located the Schubert Quartet in G Major played by the Carmel Quartet:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcnLgHtOTRA

    Even just the first minute or two shows that they are "the real thing"--wow!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Victor PoleshuckJanuary 8, 2020 at 9:58 PM

      This was part of a series called "Strings and More" organized and run by the violist, Yoel Greenberg, who is "a member of the research faculty in the Department of Music at Bar-Ilan University." The series is put on at four locations around Israel, with two or three performances at each location and one of the performances at each is in English. The early quartet they played was the C Major, D. 46.written when Schubert was 16. it was enjoyable, but really paled in comparison to the D Minor, D. 810. In the program, "The quartet's activities are supported by the Ministry of Culture and Sport."

      Delete
  2. BobJanuary 8, 2020 at 2:41 PM

    Wow - the radishes!!! Very impressive.

    ReplyDelete

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