David Runnion wrote:

>... Indeed, clapping between movements, shouting out opinions during
>the performance, demanding that a movement be repeated, eating, coming
>and going, sleeping, and other "decadent" behaviour should be not only
>tolerated but encouraged!

Please, not eating.  It's already infected our libraries for years.  In
the less urban areas of the USA in the 19th century, (we're talking frontier
here) audiences no doubt attended concerts more out of curiosity than
musical sophistication.  They probably saw no difference between a symphony
concert and a medicine show, or minstrel show.  One report (mentioned by H.
Wiley Hitchcock) describes an orchestral concert where a spectator in the
balcony amused himself by aiming a stream of tobacco juice at the principal
bassist's bald head!  Would you allow that? I wouldn't.

Chris Bonds