Jeff Wright wrote:

>I guarantee this, If any member of the audience coughed, or spoke
>out louder than was normal, Sir Thomas Beecham would either stop the
>performance, and wait for silence to resume, or he would chastise them or
>he would just stop and leave the podium.  I just loved him.  So You know
>the English audiences in that time were well behaved and very attentive.

In his autobiography Bruno Walter wrote about a performance early in
his career where the audience was noisy.  He continued conducting, but
indicated to the orchestra to play quieter, quieter, and quieter still.
Finally, the audience seemed confused and became quiet wondering what going
on.  Then Walter resumed a normal audio level.  So did the audience.

Tom Connor