Dave Runnion wrote:

>The sad thing is that in demanding total silence at live concerts,
>proposing bans of performances of Mahler 9, and staying away and listening
>to our cd's when we don't get the silence we desire, we hurt the very beast
>we love so much, the very continuity of the live classical concert.

Well, thread name to the contrary, I do not believe that Janos Gereben
was serious when he suggested banning the Ninth.  I do agree with Brother
Gereben, however, that audiences have a special talent for ruining that
final movement.  My wife and I flew up to San Francisco this weekend, to
see friends and relatives, and to attend Saturday night's performance of
the aforementioned opus.  For me, it was a way of purging my memory of
the last vestiges of a simply awful performance by the Pacific Symphony
in Orange County, California last Spring.  I was not disappointed.  In
particular, the rondo burleske was about as exciting and nerve-racking
as I have ever heard played.

Still, I do not know what was more heartbreaking: the dying strains of
Mahler's most beautiful music well-played, or the way in which that music
was disrupted by the chucklehead down in front who started applauding
before the damned thing was finished.

An old friend and his fiance joined us for the concert.  Afterward, he
quipped, "Thanks for coming to ape night at the symphony.  Trainers get in
half-price." Mind you, this was his first real concert experience.  But he
listened to the pre-concert talk, in which the nice man gently admonished
audience members, in so many words, not to make asses of themselves during
the last movement.  And my friend read the program notes, which contained
a similar admonishment.

Look, I don't like the idea of "concert-hall-as-church," either.  But there
is a time and a place for everything.  I wouldn't go so far as to say that
the concert Saturday night was "totally ruined" by some poor fella who
didn't know any better.  The performance was too good to be ruined that
way.  Then again, it wasn't helped.  And that was just about all my wife
and I heard in the post-concert rumblings on the way out to the street,
to stroll off into the wet San Francisco night.

Regards,
Bob Chen
[log in to unmask]
Los Angeles, CA