Dear coughers and cough-holders,

In a sense, I should agree with both views and everybody would be
satisfied.  It is difficult to hold one's cough, even when you are a
performing musician on stage.  But certainly some coughers try to muffle
the noise and others obviously do not care at all.  On the other side,
it is difficult to concentrate and achieve the best possible balance
if you have to take unexpected vocal parts into account.  But in some
circumstances, understanding is better than blaming, especially if the
cougher cannot feel guilty for what was an irrepressible reflex.

Now, although this has nothing personal of course (and I know that it
is not precisely what Mr.  Satz suggested), I am disturbed by the view
(encountered in the USA, but just as well in some European places like
the Luzern Festival) that the audience simply pays for a service and is
entitled to do, in a sense, whatever pleases them with it.  First, if
paying $12 was an effort equivalent to working every day so as to become
Milstein or even Masur or MTT, I'd be glad to pay twice that price.
Second, the question should not really be "does the public give and the
performers take, or the other way round?" As far as I know, three
categories of people are giving in a concert.  Performers, with their hard
work and everything prepared to give the best of themselves.  Listeners,
who are part of music's life, ensure that it remains a language for mankind
and not just a closed group, and also make it financially possible to play
music.  And, maybe, composers...

Frankly, we do not own the music we are playing.  With some exceptions,
performers feel that they are playing mostly to serve the masterworks and
lesser works of the past and present.  I am not sure that all listeners
have the same modesty.  If a whole city decides that Mozart needs them
and not the other way round, no problem, they can stop paying for it, but
personally I wonder if what they'd pay for instead is quite up to what we
all lose when orchestras go banktrupt or lose their good conductors on such
matters.

Quite a few composers also say that they serve the music being conveyed
through them, be it by heaven or by inspiration.  This is a matter of
faith, but what I mean is that music should definitely not be a cheap
question of owning.

 From a musical point of view, it seems to me that coughing during the
bombing in P.I.Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture is quite bearable, whereas some
magical pianissimi, so difficult to achieve and sustain, definitely deserve
goodwill from all, including coughers if possible.  This seems reasonable,
whatever the cost of the seat and the wages of the performers might be.

I hope that I didn't offend anyone, but if the point is to say that
classical music is social entertainment and consumption goods, I'd rather
leave this view to others, even if regarding all music as sacred is going
too far in my opinion.

Best wishes,

Thanh-Tam Le