Note to audiences and others

This applies mainly to the audience for the concert I just attended last weekend. At the risk of sounding like a curmudgeon. . .

1. To the guy in front of me who was peeved about being "cut off" in line and yelled at the poor usher and held up the line: it was a free concert. Stop complaining and just go enjoy the free music.

2. To the guy who was siting diagonally across from me: I don't know what you could've possibly found in the program that was more enthralling than the actual performance going on in front of you, nor do I care, but please do not keep noisily flipping your pages during a sonata where there are only two instruments playing. If you want to do this in Davies Symphony Hall, which seats thousands, during a loud Tchaikovsky passage, when the horns are braying away, no one will notice, and I won't care (so long as you don't do this during an English horn solo). But it's a bad idea to do it during chamber music concerts. I mean, there was nothing in the programs, except for the names of the pieces (which at this point of the concert, numbered only one), and the names of players, which I don't see how reading this in the middle of their playing really adds to your experience, or to ours, for that matter. If you absolutely must turn pages, that is fine, but please do it quietly, especially when there are so few instruments playing and the space is small enough that you can hear the players breathing. Also, three minutes of page-turning is annoying, but tolerable, if one is being generous. However, an entire first movement, when your page-turns are as loud as someone shuffling a deck of cards, was a bit much. I know it was a free concert and all, but the performers had to work just as hard, regardless of whether the concert is free or not.

3. To whoever made the loudish noise right when the cellist was playing harmonics: not that there is really any good time to make a loud noise, but if you absolutely must, please not when she is playing harmonics, or it kills the effect. I mean, this sonata was rife with such lovely harmonics.

Actually, other than these few people, the audience was otherwise mostly attentive and appreciative. No cellphones going off and minimal coughing. Yes, there was some occasional fidgeting, and people seemed to be really restless during the Janacek quartet, but otherwise, they were fine. While I'm on a roll. . .

4. To one of the performers (I don't remember which): I'm not sure if this is acceptable practice among instrumentalists, though given how my private instructors used to hammer me ad nauseum on this point, I'm assuming it's not--FYI, if you want to quietly check the pitch of the opening note of a movement, I probably won't notice, but when you lightly pizzicatoed an entire measure between movements, I kindof noticed. It didn't bother me one bit, so if this is accepted practice among instrumentalists, then go ahead and do this, but just thought I'd let you know, in case it's like humming pitches during a choral concert, which we're not supposed to do. Of course, for someone who is paranoid of missing pitches, it is quite a challenge to refrain from humming pitches to check them. But theoretically, we're not supposed to do this during concerts.

And while we're harping on performers,
4. To a certain quartet that is in residence at my university and periodically offers free noontime concerts: According to the way I tell time, noon is 12:00 p.m. If we are doing "Broadway" time, a noontime concert should start, at latest, at 12:08. But starting a noontime concert at 12:29 is really frustrating, particularly for those of us who have no more than an hour lunch break (which btw, is at least 50 percent of your audience, since I imagine most students are not around during the summer), especially since most of us had to leave our offices at 11:30 to get there early enough to get aisle seats (or seats at all, since these tend to fill up) so we can leave--ten minutes into your playing--causing as little disruption as possible. I know the concert is free, and you are popular enough that the hall fills anyway, but starting a concert 29 minutes after the listed start time is slightly obnoxious, especially since this seems more habit than a one-time occurrence.