Kentucky Serendipity

Three Over-the-Top Classical Music Stories 11 March 2012

Classical music — refined, genteel, urbane, sophisticated. Sometimes. Here are three stories which bend that reputation a bit.

First, the decidedly non-genteel. At a recent performance by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, two patrons argued over a seat. It must have been a very good seat, for one of them threw punches. More precisely, one struck the other. During the close of the second movement of the Brahms Symphony No. 2, a man in his 30s hit a 76 year old man several times. Perhaps classical music is refined, however, for the concert did not stop for the altercation. The conductor cast “dagger eyes” toward the box where the trouble occurred but did not stop conducting.
You can read the story on the Chicago Sun-Times web site.

Second, theatres and concert arenas ask us to turn off/silence our cell phones. They shouldn’t have to do this — common sense ought to inform one to do so. Perhaps the signs are good reminders because anyone can forget to do this simple act of courtesy. And someone did forget at a performance by the New York Philharmonic. Near the end of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony someone’s iPhone rang with a marimba ringtone. And it continued to ring. Conductor Alan Gilbert stated, “The symphony ends incredibly quietly so there was literally no way that we could go on. So I stopped the music and I asked the general vicinity where the sound was coming from ‘please turn off your cellphone.’ And I had to ask several times ….”
You can read the story on the MSNBC web site.

I’ll end on a light note (no pun intended). Another musician encountered the same problem as the New York Philharmonic but handled it quite differently.
Slovakian violist Lukáš Kmit was interrupted by the standard Nokia ringtone.
Instead of stopping the concert, he played the ringtone and improvised
a short piece. Watch the video to see his creative response which turned an interruption into a light-hearted musical treat. [Trivia note: the Nokia ringtone comes from a piece entitled
Gran Vals (“Grand Waltz”), composed in 1902 by
Spanish guitarist Francisco Tárrega.]

copyright 2012 by the author