Sir Simon Rattle was reaching out, as I wrote earlier, to those who might not ever get into a symphony hall.
Now he’s also reached out to those who do attend concerts:
At Tuesday night’s performance of Mahler 9, Rattle was plagued by what our correspondent calls “mute but unscored coughing from the audience”, and seems to have snapped. Holding the orchestra silent between movements, he turned around and quietly reminded them that, in order for the musicians to do their job, the audience had to do its job too, and stay as quiet as possible. A small physical demonstration of best-practice cough-stifling, featuring the maestro’s own handkerchief, followed. Chastened concertgoers immediately shut up. You would. (RTWT)
How ’bout that?!
I do my job no matter what, to be honest. I mean, we’ve had all sorts of things go wrong and the thing is, we have to go on. We have to play well. That’s life. That’s show biz. I understand the frustration … it’s distracting when the hacking goes overboard. Cell phones are even worse. Flash photography is the worst since it’s deliberate. But I really can’t imagine teaching an audience how to cough properly. Too funny.
You can read more here if you’d like.
Hmmm. Maybe I can blame any errors on coughing though. Gee … I think I’ll hang on to that one. 🙂
