Audiences

Alex Ross writes about the need for some to have totally quiet audience in the concert hall (Noise's Off). I have to admit to being a shusher, primarily because I believe the artists, music and audience deserve our respect and attention. Those who insist on disturbing it with chatter, commentary or extraneous noises (cell phones, beepers et. al.) I consider just disrespectful to their fellow audience members and to the artists working their tails off in front of us.

This was brought home to be this afternoon, having been part of one of the the most polite and attentive audiences in my experience of concert going in NY. Granted we were hearing an extraordinary performance of Das Lied von der Erde and the Carter Variations for Orchestra (with Anne Sophie von Otter not disappointing one bit in deputizing for an indisposed Lorraine Hunt Lieberson), but even then the 30 second silence after Das Lied surprised me. The pauses between movements were a torrent of coughs but that didn't matter at all given the rapt attention to Der Abschied.