September tomorrow.

Where has August gone?   Wherever it has gone it has gone there in a flash.   My last lovely village lunch was in June - there was none in July and none in August, but I do rather think they begin again next week.   I do hope friends S and T are going to continue taking me - it is such a lovely occasion.

 I had a really lovely evening last evening.   I rarely listen to music because my hearing loss tends to distort my hearing of musical sounds and, being a musician, it distresses me that I am not hearing the right note.  It got so bad that if The National Anthem was being played I could not tell what it was from the musical sounds, only from the beat. 

But since my attack last October and the complete change of medication from Epilim to Leviteracitam  the condition seems to have improved and when I saw that last night's 'Prom' concert was a really special one - the "highlight this year" as suggested by one of the music critics- I decided to give it a try.   There is always the 'off' button.  

But I have to say it was not needed.   The concert, on BBC2 from 7.30 to 9.30pm and it was Sir Simon Rattle's farewell concert -  the Prom of Sunday August 27th -  as he leaves his job  as Director of Music and Chief Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra to do more or less the same job as Chief Conductor of the Bavarian State Orchestra and the Bavarian Radio Chorus.   (He has both German and English nationality).

He chose to leave with Mahler's Ninth Symphony - the 'farewell' (it was Mahler's last symphony - his Tenth being unfinished upon his untimely death.)  It is a mammoth work.   It was superb and Simon Rattle's last concert coupled with Mahler's last finished farewell symphony made it quite an emotional evening for everyone - audience, orchestra and conductor.

Before that mammoth work there was another emotional piece -  Poulenc's 'Figure humaine' a poem set to music during the second World War and smuggled out of Nazi occupied Paris to London, where it had its premiere on 25th March 1945.   It is an unaccompanied cantata and it was such an emotional piece sung so beautifully.

By the end of the evening Sir Simon Rattle, the orchestra and the singers were all emotionally moved as I suspect a large part of the audience were too.  (and me)

I drew the blinds, turned the lights low and switched both phones off before it started and it is a long time since I had such an evening. 

It has been a lovely sunny day today - a definite Autumn chill in the air but nothing that an extra jacket wouldn't cure. 

Hopefully I will be back with more thoughts tomorrow.