Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner A fight at the symphony!

http://wwwimage.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/10/national/main2785098.shtml

CBS/AP) Concert-goers and even Boston Pops conductor Keith Lockhart were caught off-guard when a fight broke out on opening night at the usually sedate Symphony Hall in Boston, Mass.

Video of the fight on Wednesday night showed two men struggling in the balcony — one with his shirt pulled off — as several people stood around them.

CBS Station WBZ correspondent Joyce Kulhawik said one man objected to another man's talking. "A woman screamed, then suddenly it came to fisticuffs."

Witnesses said they heard a scream from the balcony, and the sound of chairs falling, then a second scream as the fight escalated.

At that point, Lockhart halted the performance while police intervened.

Boston police spokesman David Estrada said police officers on security detail at the hall escorted the men off the property, and no charges were filed. No injuries were reported, he said.

"It was an unfortunate incident, but thankfully this kind of behavior is truly out of the ordinary at a Boston Pops concert," the orchestra said in a statement. It referred calls to the Boston police department.

The performance launched the 122nd season of the Boston Pops.

The fight broke out during a medley of tunes from the movie musical "Gigi." Kulhawik noted, dryly, "It has that effect on some people."

...and we thought that hockey games are bad!

John

As any Lloyd Webber would on me.

Thanks for posting that, John!

I saw that story yesterday, John. People talking incessantly during concerts annoys us, too, but we usually confine the response to glaring looks...

Ah, for the good old days when such things were commonplace! George Antheil wore a handgun when he performed, which he would pull out and place on the piano when things got lively.

George Antheil story, related to me by Mark Devoto.

Antheil at one time was practicing with a high resistance mechanical keyboard, playing each day until his fingers started to bleed. He was in Germany not long after the end of WW II, and was overcharged in a restaurant. The manager, at the front, where one paid said there was nothing he could do to correct the situation. Antheil then took one finger and brought it down on the glass counter top, breaking it.

Makes sense, considering descriptions of his playing style (from Wikipedia):

it's rarely seen in a concert such a huge 'noise'... but there're plenty of small noise: people whispering or even talking to each other, plastic bag noise (someone sitting hehind me during a concert did that constantly), huge cauphing (they don't even bother to cover it by hands) and of course cell phone rings!

I nearly got involved in something like that at the Minnesota Orchestra. Some guy's cell phone went off, and rather than be embarrassed and shut the thing off, he actually answered it and carried on a conversation. A little old lady two rows behind him got up, leaned over, and started smacking him on the head with a program. I was hoping to get a shot at kicking the guy in the kidneys if someone would have just pulled him down to the floor where I could get at him.

But they were playing Brahms #4. It was the principle of the thing.

But Gigi? . . . brings in the riff raff.

Tomasino

The story goes that at the first performance of Stravinky's "Rite of Spring," people started whapping each other over the head with umbrellas. Wish I'd been there.

Tomasino

Another story goes that someone actually set a dog loose on stage.

Generally I would say that most audience at classical concert/recital behave pretty well. But again, only at classical concert would I see
1) at Herman Prey recital, a guy next to me, probably an aspiring young conductor or conductor wanna be, had his eyes closed and tried to conduct the whole recital. I am sure Mr. Prey was following the annoying guy's direction the whole evening.
2) In New York, a guy next to me yelled at me for breathing too loud....ok I shall hold my breath during the rest of the performence, only in New York, I suppose.

Perhaps you're thinking of the NYC production of Camelot wherein a dog was always brought on stage for "The Merry Month of May". Everything went fine until... well one can guess the rest.

"...only in New York...." from someone who lives in the city where the most outrageous disruption of a musical event in modern history occurred:

A Humid Recital Stirs Bangkok

It's good to post that link about once a year.

This story gives a new meaning to the term: Boston "Pops"!

Jason, I'm with you re: Lloyd Webber (the son, not the father).

The "father" was a humble servant of the Anglican Church. His music is still used within...

Cheers!

And fine music it is...

Too bad the father's name has been tainted by the son. :rolleyes:

That article was HILARIOUS!

I would too. Mind your manners.

Still, I remember some Mayfair b**** clanking her bracelet during "Nimrod" from Elgar's Enigma Variations. The rest is history. I killed her on the spot and -you guys didn't know this!- I'm composing my post from death row... (Oops, I'm not in the US. Well there goes another one...)

Antheil was mostly Polish, although his father had a German name. His first date with Boski was to spend Christmas with his aunt in Poland.

One of his concerts in Paris was staged with the deliberate intent of starting a riot. The people who planned it filmed the riot and used it in a movie.

There are a number of mistakes in the Wikipedia entry. Obviously it has never been edited by anyone who has read his book. Of course, his book is probably not reliable, but the article is even less so.

I attended a concert once, and during the piano solo a woman in the audience coughed incessantly. Loud, hacking coughs. The pianist (whose name I have forgotten),continued amidst all the racket.
The woman finally left the hall, but not until almost the end of the performance.

At the conclusion of his performance the pianist took his bows, and said "Well, I had no idea that I was going to be playing a duet." Gaby Tu

This made me think of a night long ago at the Hollywood Bowl where a certain soprano did not quite agree with the maestro's tempi. No figth broke out, but the next day, Martin Bernheimer wrote in his review: There were problems from the start. He wanted to go fast. She wanted to go slow. He won.

When I attended a recital (A young Macedonian pianist performed all the preludes of Chopin and Shostakovich), next to me sat a very very old lady (probably 80-90 years old!!). She seemed hungry, so she got her purse started to look inside and grabbed a sendwich out of it.. DAMN! And not only that, but she started making noises while eating, after the break I imediately moved 5 rows away. And guess what, the lady decided to sit next to me again, because the lights bothered her..

We have some pretty civilized concert-goers here, HOWEVER, please recollect that when you perch forward in your seat (usually in pretend concentration), you ruin the sight-lines for about five rows in back of you...

And turn off the damncellphone; I have YET to hear (and I have heard zillions) any cell phone call that was of any importance at all...

Your twaddle may be important to you (pity), but it is not to me or anybody else...

Ah, being from San Francisco you must have abundant experience with Muni. Same thing here. How often have I been subjected to the innane, empty-headed conversation of the jerk on his or her mobile phone... Enough to make one go ballistic.

Re: cell phones - a friend of mine told me that the Russians are or will be using technology to disable the use of cell phones in all concert halls - this means all performance spaces - ballet, opera, orchestral etc.

Wish they would do the same in this country.

I attended a performance last summer at Town Hall - the pianist performed an all Shostokvich program. Someone's cell phone rang and a lady shouted "shut the g---&&%% thing off" - this was during the performance. The pianist soldiered on and performed very well. Believe it or not the blasted thing went off again.

What could be so important - leave the thing home and enjoy the moment.

I keep thinking that if I ever got to be the announcer at a show, I would say, "If any of you are seated next to someone with a device that makes noise, recordings, or photographs, now would be a good time to reach over and turn it off. If you cannot figure out how to turn it off, put it on the floor and use your foot."

unfortunately one of the best piano fiasco story I ever heard was actually fictitious.
The article about the sticky Baldwin piano published, I believe, in Bangkok Post was actually a spoof as I recalled. I think it was mentioned in one of those urban myth site about the origin of the story but I can't find it now.
Still a very funny story though!

Well, I've searched on Google for Myron Kropp, and never found anything, so I have had my doubts. But, as you say, true or not, very funny.

Eh, this reminds me of when I came close to doing something rude during my recent visit to San Diego symphony.

It was right after the interval, Brahms's second symphony had started and had reached the second theme, when this old gentleman three rows in front started noisily unwrapping what I guess was a cough drop. And perhaps trying to be considerate, he proceeded to do this verrrry verrry slowly. Unfortunately it was a quite passage in the music, and soon everyone was staring at him instead of the stage. His wife in the next seat kept looking at him, and I thought she was trying to stop him with a glare.

But no, once he finished unwrapping his own (which took the rest of the exposition...I was thinking 'no big loss...I can at least listen to the repeat')...she leaned over and handed him another one to unwrap! Midway through the repeat, people in the row ahead turned back and gestured him to stop. He paused for a bar, and started again...a bit quieter, and slower.

Of course, after this performance, once he had finished unwrapping both, he calmly got up and walked out the door!

AARGH!!!

Innane, empty-headed conversation sounds rather mild. Most often you hear people casually (and loudly) saying things like and and even

It is enough to make me consider "un" public transportation. :rolleyes:

Here, cell phone users are considered to be the New Smokers. I do not own a cell phone (I don't need any more impinging on what's left of my private life) and will not have one. I repeat, I have yet to hear ANY cell phone conversation that had any significance at all. Mostly they talk about what they had for dinner last night or it's about their kids, who are usually a bunch of idiots...and you're right about the Muni - they have enough problems without all the incessant blather - I was greatly dismayed when BART and Muni joyfully announced that they had enabled their undergrounds to accommodate cell phone users...they could have done something to improve service but instead they did this - go figure...

Here is a link that claims that is ficitious:
http://www.snopes.com/humor/nonsense/piano.asp

Certainly sounds very probable for Bangkok weather and true at least for my friend's Petrof upright until he did some major rearrangment in the room, adding dehumidifier etc

But I still want to believe :,-(

Didn't fool me. It all looked to be rather suspicious. The three Bach works mentioned are:
1. Toccata & Fugue in D minor
2. Prelude & Fugue in D
3. Fantasy & Fugue in G minor

Those are all major Bach organ works and it is an extremely rare recital wherein more than one Bach transcription shows up. All three of the above have indeed been transcribed for piano, yet the latter two (by Busoni and Liszt respectively) are seldom done in concert these days.

The person concocting this piece of rubbish obviously didn't know his stuff, especially as there was no indication that these were transcriptions from organ works. Total BS.

Except that, according to Snopes , it didn't happen. The article was a parody of pompous reviewers.

Ted