The last public smoker in classical music
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Yuri Bashmet, viola player and ensemble director, puffing away at a press conference yesterday in Rostov-on-Don.
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Amen.
The Wagnerian tenor, Jess Thomas, once said that he didn’t consider himself a singer that smoked. He thought of himself as basically being a smoker who sang.
Reminds me of this old catholic joke: “Is it a sin to smoke while you are praying?” – “Of course it is. But it wouldn’t be a sin to pray while you are smoking.”
Yikes. I guess 20th century smoking laws haven’t made it to that corner of Russia yet.
Or they are ignored, as they are in some places in Europe and elsewhere.
Resistance is not always undesirable.
Smoking laws in the 20th century? A rare exception. Norway, Finland and a few progressive US states. Texas, Oklahoma until today have no smoking laws, trailing behind Russia which enacted smoking bans in 2013.
Most of the anti-smoking legislation worldwide came within the first decade of the 21st century.
Don’t know about statewide, but Houston was the only airport I had ever been in that forbade smoking ANYWHERE inside — in 1993. Not even in bars — I was on a layover of about and hour and a half and it was early, but I would have had a soft drink in a bar if I could have smoked. Had to go out to the parking garage.
Don’t forget Barenboim and his beloved cigars!
I am a retired violist and at the age of 72 still smoke! No problems so far… a lung ex-ray recently showed no indication that I had ever smoked!
Good for you. You played Russian roulette with your genes and won. I have relatives who lost.
What a good image: “playing Russian roulette with your genes”. I think most people eventually lose. In the unlikely event that you won’t come down with a serious illness, you’re certainly not fit when you smoke: shortness of breath, fatigue and the rest.
Correlation is not causation, but at the times when musicians even smoked and drank during rehearsals Lenny!) the music was better.
Not that long ago most ballet dancers I knew smoked. And if you think a trumpet needs breath, try doing a series of grand jetés. Erik Bruhn, who practically chain-smoked, told me he sweated all the toxins out in rehearsal and performance.
Sweating out toxins is a myth. Sweat is 99% water. Toxins are processed by the digestive system.
http://uamshealth.com/healthlibrary2/medicalmyths/canyousweattoxinsoutofyourbody/
Yes, I’m sure smoking may have helped Leonard Bernstein through a rehearsal, but if he had quit (as he should have, which he acknowledged to his mother during his last sad phone conversation with her), he perhaps wouldn’t have been dead twenty-five years (next month) by now.
Maestro Robert Spano is an inveterate smoker. Still.
Smoking? Why are we talking about that pinky ring?
There is definately a lot to find out about this subject. I like all the points you made
There is definately a lot to find out about this subject. I like all the points you made