Likes: Originally Posted by Mandryka
Telling people please don't cough or make noise because we're recording this will prompt a coughing fit like nothing else. You can bet that many of the worst offenders went home from the concert and didn't cough once for the rest of the evening.
It's like kiddy fiddling in the Catholic church.
Whatever you do, don't scratch your nose . . . you scratched your nose didn't you? (I know I did)
It does seem to me that if one is listening to a recording and the coughing is troubling to them, it's likely that insufficient Aufmerksamkeit is being paid to the music (assuming coughing is not excessive, of course). Many CM listeners' pursuit of purity and perfection makes them unwitting targets of humor; best to avoid this - we're humans and prone to defects and faults of many persuasions, including being obsessed with CM.
Last edited by Ich muss Caligari werden; Nov-19-2020 at 13:50.
De la musique avant toute chose... Paul Verlaine
Coughing and creaking chairs during the performance is extremely annoying, I have some live recordings, only one of them has coughing, I actually discarded the recording, leaving the booklet because they are quite beautiful. Applause and even some whistlings at the end of performance exhilarate me, I actually like it.
Last edited by Ariasexta; Nov-19-2020 at 14:05.
"In God I Hope, in Music I Trust."
"I Do Not Want to Be The Master of My Life, But The Magician of My Life."
Me.
There is no question in my mind that the best performances are the result of the interaction between a performer and the audience, coughs and all.
Last edited by SanAntone; Nov-19-2020 at 18:15.
As long as it's not excessive, I can tolerate it. There are some studio recordings where players try to stifle coughs, that's ok too. The extraneous noises in some older recordings is quite amusing. They would be covered up on LPs with surface noise and such, but CDs just make it all so clear.
Applause is another problem: sometimes it's so loud that it's jarring and annoying. I prefer it to be left out. But I have a concert recording of Glazunov's ballet Raymonda where the audience claps at times and somehow it's ok - adds to the sense of joy.
I will never understand why anyone who is ill would go to a concert and spread their disease. Flu, cold, now Coronavirus. And these people who cough all the time? Quit smoking. Drink plenty of fluids. Take care of yourself, but quit exposing the rest of us to your rude behavior.
Sometimes a live recording is so good and unique as to make listening to it unavoidable. Richter's Sofia "Pictures" is one such.
o
(Beecham, whose acerbicism was justly legendary, suggested that people who coughed during concerts should be treated with the gentle application of a warm steam roller to their throats.
Last edited by MarkW; Nov-19-2020 at 15:28.
Manxfeeder liked this post
My wife and I, too, knew a 'cougher' : a large rotund gentleman who sat front row and center at our local cinema (how he managed to squeeze himself into those narrow seats is another mystery). His hacking would not begin until the curtain raised. Never, ever, heard him cough as he was exiting the theater...
Last edited by Ich muss Caligari werden; Nov-19-2020 at 20:56. Reason: Peace and Reconciliation
De la musique avant toute chose... Paul Verlaine
Very good. Act 3 of Tristan, he’s on his back singing quietly, I don’t blame him for losing his rag. Thanks for that, I didn’t know it existed.
Last edited by Mandryka; Nov-19-2020 at 15:37.
Christabel liked this post
Feldman knew the world he was sending his music into. I consider any performer who berates an audience for coughing to be a supreme a**h*le.
I purchased this set of Beethoven trios, featuring Du Pre, Barenboim, and Perlman. The playing is top shelf.
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But the coughing drives me to distraction. I listen on headphones, and it is very unpleasant. The real problem is that it occurs during quiet passages of the music itself, as opposed to during movement breaks.
So: applause is great (though I frequently skip past it). Coughing is a deal breaker for me. I totally understand the argument for live versus studio recordings. At their best, a live recording might be able to communicate some of the electricity between performers and audience. But if it suffers from coughing, I will take a studio recording in a heartbeat.
This is not to say that I am some sort of coughing nazi in a live show. I get it. People, especially old people, need to cough. I don't like it, and it might disrupt my appreciation of a beautiful passage of music, but I paid for a live show with other humans present , so it is what it is. I don't have the option of renting out the entire hall for a private show. I'm getting what I paid for at $30-$60.
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My family also goes to outdoor performances in Millennium Park in Chicago (above is my son getting into the performance with my sushi chopsticks). People have picnics, conversation, etc, and there is the regular cacophony of city sounds added into the mix as well. But I am paying for nothing besides a bus ride and a takeout order, and I enjoy the sights and sounds of the city anyway. If I wanted to focus with laser like intensity on the music, I would either take it indoors or listen to a studio recording.
So a recording with coughs is the worst of both worlds. It's a venue in which I ought to be able to focus entirely on the music, but can't, and it gives me a recording of a live experience, which it isn't (I don't get the visual ambience). So why tolerate it at all?
Last edited by MatthewWeflen; Nov-19-2020 at 17:24.
Also, please, let's can the politics, and don't respond to troll posts. I come here to escape all of that. We're not going to change anyone's mind about that stuff on Talk Classical, anyway.
Personally, applause or coughing doesn't add nor subtract from the performance. It bothers me not. It's like the clicks and pops of my vinyl, hiss and so on. Not a problem either chez vincula. I'm very much aware that I'm listening to an artifact, a musical re-production, so as long as the performance achieves the goal of moving me and my fantasy, I'm perfectly happy.
Regards,
Vincula
adriesba liked this post
Given a choice between an excellent performance with "the clicks and pops of vinyl, hiss and so on," and the same performance on CD without the clicks and pops and hiss, I'll choose the CD every time. Given the choice between an excellent studio performance with dead silence behind it, or an excellent performance in front of a rheumatic audience, I'll choose the studio recording.
Sometimes you have no choice though.
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