Tonight’s concert ended with the most recent of the Deryck Cooke realizations of the five movements of Mahler’s Tenth Symphony. It’s a sprawling work, for the most part very austere in its orchestrations. It begins with one of the most fearsome viola soli passages – over a minute where the violas play softly and unsupported, and where every sound of every person in the section is exposed for everyone to hear. Two scherzos and one Purgatorio later, we arrive at the final movement, which begins with the somber thump of the bass drum, mournful songs from the bass tuba, and the keening, weeping song of the solo flute. After a long journey from this quiet anguish, the end of the symphony concludes with a slow dissembling of the orchestration, ending at a barest whisper. The world holds its breath…
UNTIL SOME CRAZY A-HOLE STARTS YELLING MANIACALLY THE MOMENT THE MUSIC ENDS!!!!
I’m normally very patient with some of the antics of our patrons. Clapping between movements? Not a problem. Coughing and sneezing? We all have to do it, and sometimes you just can’t control it. Loud stage whispers during quiet passages? Well, they’re probably old and can’t hear how loud they are. But yelling nonsense at the top on one’s lungs at the close of a long, emotional, and physically draining performance? How little respect did this man have for the performers? What about for his fellow patrons? He ruined a wonderful performance, and I’m mad as hell about it. The entire orchestra played well, but he just threw crap all over the wonderful solo contributions of concertmaster Jun Iwasaki, principal cello Nancy Ives, principal viola Joël Belgique, principal flutist Alicia DiDonato Paulsen, principal horn John Cox, principal oboe Martin Hebert, principal trumpet Jeffrey Work, English hornist Kyle Mustain, principal clarinet Yoshinori Nakao, and principal tuba JaTtik Clark. This person was clearly only interested in their own agenda (apparently this person had accosted music director Carlos Kalmar at his pre-concert talk, because he was offended at the realization that was being performed on the concert), and didn’t give a damn about the feelings of the performers or his fellow audience members. Such selfishness. Such boorish behavior. Shame on him.