Karachi
Europe has, for centuries, been imparting cultural refinement to the world. Be it England, which was referred to as a nest of singing birds on account of its tremendous poetic talent or her scientific inventiveness, or Germany for its galaxy of philosophers, or the French for the wealth of literature and philosophy they have imparted to the world.
Not to be left behind is Italy, especially when it comes to music. It is the home of all stringed musical instruments; it is home to the musical instrument that forms the basis of all musical compositions, the piano, and has also been an immense contributor to literature.
The Italians have a reputation for romance and this is reflected with the importance accorded to the moon in Italian music, poetry and literature. It was precisely this that was presented on Saturday evening at an evening of Italian songs dedicated to the moon.
Even though the stars were all pupils of the National Academy of Performing Arts (Napa), all Pakistanis, they had resolutely taken up the challenge of presenting Italian language songs and accepted the challenge meticulously.
None could say that Italian was not their mother tongue. Not only that, their voices were highly trained and melodious. The programme opened with a number, ‘Figlio Della Luna’ – Luna being Italian for the moon.
It was meticulously rendered by two young students of Napa, Rabia Khokhar and Areeba. It was a really melodious duet with perfect coordination between the two. It certainly made for a haunting melody.
However, the show was not confined to music. It also included dance and artistic movements to the beat of the music. There was a dance performance, a series of fine artistic movements to the beat of music which was superb. The female performer exhibited real litheness of body, coupled with total coordination with the accompanying recitation with lines in Urdu and Italian alternating.
Then again, there was another dance performance by Adnan whose movements could be described as artistic, bordering on the acrobatic. Alongside the recitation, one could hear the soft strains of ‘Moon River’ in the background.
To cater to the purely indigenous taste, there was also purely Pakistani stuff with Ustad Salamat Hussain playing Noor Jehan’s famous hit on the transverse flute, ‘Chandni Raatein’, from the early 1950s film, ‘Gulnaar’.
The song was about moonlit nights as the programme was meant to be an ode to the moon. It surely must have been a beautifully nostalgic trip down memory lane, especially for the oldies among the audience.
Daniyal put up a really adroit performance with his saxophone accompaniment. So did Waqas Ghulam Ali at the table, even though his performance was somewhat drowned. There again were some very winsome duets by the Rabia-Areeba duo and, all of this made for a two-hour long gripping show.