Cough vigilante

Here in NJ, Maestro Macaal has had to turn in the middle of some concerts and beg the audience to try to keep their coughing to a minimum. When recording for archives or for Delos, the announcements mentioned by Albert have been made as well before the concert. The same acoustics in the NJ Performing Arts Center that make it possible for Macaal to bring the orchestra to a pppp on some pieces also work the other way--he and some of the orchestra members have told me that coughs can sound like bombs on stage. My practice has been that if I have a bad cold and cough, I'll have to give my tickets to a friend; otherwise I think that inattention is a reason some otherwise healthy people cough at these performances, and I must admit that does grate on me at times. And don't get me started on the time I was at a NY Philharmonic concert a couple of years ago and cell phones went off TWICE in the performance!!! That is inexcusable. Thanks for letting me vent, Charlie, you are not alone.

i'm a little shy about admitting this. when i was a mischievious teen attending classical concerts i would cough during a lull in the program just to see how many others would react to my suggestion and follow suit. result never less than two, haha.

...and how ironic that some concert-goers "time" their exclamations for the quieter passages, somehow "thinking" this is LESS interruptive of the music!
Well, spring is coming, and with it higher relative humidity in artificially heated halls, and consequently fewer scratchy throats needing clearing. Phew!

Do you know the difference between Orlando and a cup of yogurt? The yogurt has an active culture. It is impractical to list in the concert program all the things that people shouldn't do during a classical music performance, but here in O-town, it's tempting. The admonition might read: During the concert, please refrain from coughing, sneezing, whispering, shuffling your feet, reading your program with a penlight flashlight, rustling the pages, dropping your program on the floor, making noise while retrieving it, letting your wristwatch go "beep beep" at the top of every hour, shuffling your feet, crossing your legs and hitting the seat in front of you or the person next to you with your foot, or making a minute-long ordeal out of trying to quietly unwrap the cellophane from a piece of candy during the quietest passage of the entire concert. I have witnessed all this and more here in Orlando, the cultural epicenter of the universe. But my all-time favorite episode was the one in which our little ol' mayor gal took the stage to read her pre-concert proclamation, declaring the entire week a tribute to our visiting orchestra from Russia. After presenting the conductor with the honorary keys to the city, she left the stage. Shortly thereafter, the lights dimmed and the orchestra began to play. Only then did our illustrious mayor make her way down the row to her seat (we have no center aisle), tripping over feet in the dark and excusing herself all the way as she went. When she finally found her seat and plunked down in it, she was right next to me. Throughout the entire concert, she and the gentleman seated on the other side of her, presumably her husband, exchanged comments about the performance. No wonder the number one radio station in town has a country format. Let's hear it for hillbillies tryin' to act all grown up and big city-like. Believe me, a simple cough pales in comparison.

Dougholdco,

Every time I read a post such as yours I'm reminded of why so much of my money has gone into elaborate stereo equipment and sources. Am full up with the coughers, whisperers, candy unwrappers, cell phoners et al. BTW, it's no better here in the big city; just a bunch of Northern hillbillies who also don't know decorum from a tropical fish. Exasperating, ain't it?