
First published in the Guardian on 11 September, 2013
When friends who aren’t used to hearing live classical music come with me to concerts, they often ask whether they need to behave in any particular way. I tell them to just turn up and listen, that a concert needs no dress code or special handshake. But there are some unspoken rules. The recurring theme muttered around this year’s Edinburgh International Festival had to do with noise – not the noise made by performers on stage (the noise that ticket-buyers paid to hear), but the noise made by audiences in the halls. Edinburgh is a noisy crowd, and not in a good way.
Take the last movement of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony: that tender, faltering statement of resignation and frailty. As conductor Daniele Gatti held the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in a breathtaking suspended whisper, the moment should have been utterly transporting – unfortunately, the piercing sound of an unadjusted hearing aid went ringing round the hall like a tiny, whiny theremin. A couple of weeks earlier, Mariss Jansons and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra had to compete with a cheerful volley of dry coughs ricocheting around the Usher Hall. And there were phones ringing while Nikolai Lugansky played JanáÄek, shuffling and chatting as Ensemble musikFabrik played Cage.
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