John Deacon:

>Someone just sent me this description of an extraordinarily funny incident
>at this concert - it appeared in a UK newspaper.
>
> First-night couple drop a clanger (snip)

Sorry to spoil a good story, but:

I was at the concert, not far from the area in question, as was James
Kearney.  This "incident", which has been referred to on Mahler-list, did
not happen.  Someone did get up from a seat in front-row stalls to open
and close the doors to the back-stage area where the bells were, thereby
contributing to the illusion of distance - this is something I've seen
done at several performances of M6.  The rest of the story is just the
perpetuation of an "urban myth" about this symphony by a hack journalist
with nothing better to do or not enough ears to hear what was really
happening at that excellent performance.

Apologies to those who have already read my observations about this silly
story on Mahler-list.  I left it out of the version of my review that I
posted to this list, because at that stage the story hadn't appeared here
and therefore refutation was unnecessary.

On a different subject, I'm sorry that Don Satz has decided to leave
us.  Although his record-collecting interests are not ones that I share,
I always looked for and enjoyed his posts.  He and I indulged in some
occasional on-list teasing of each other and we did have some genuine
differences of opinion, but we always resolved them in a friendly and
civilised way, either on the list or in private mail.  He also had a rare
talent of conveying a lot in very few words.  I try to emulate that, but
it's not one of my gifts.  I'll miss his contributions to the list.

Ian Crisp
[log in to unmask]