13 Tuesday evening eight o'clock

Every Tuesday evening at eight o'clock, for six years now, I am in Tell Aviv at the home of Rafi Lavi. Yes, Rafi Lavi the Painter. Until recently our group of ardent music lovers met at his place on Jonah Street but now we meet at his new home in Oliphant Street. Rafi is a music freak. He has more than ten thousand discs and continues to buy more and more. This enables him to prepare a program each week in which we hear a musical work – a short part of it – in between ten and twenty different performances. We Then evaluate them and give reasons for our preferences, if we so desire.

Only at the end of the evening does Rafi (or Amir Mandel who lately has been helping to prepare these evenings) disclose who the performers were. Almost always there are surprises. A famous violinist is not viewed favorably, a pianist whom no one has heard of is everyone's favorite, or a performance that I have at home and which I thought was the best – and now I found only bad words for it. Listening to music in that way is very intensive and requires one to make fine distinctions. And if you think that six years is a long time, consider the fact that this group exists for more than fifteen years and there are those who remind me that I am one of the newcomers.