Rachmaninov concerto is disrupted by 5-minute fire alarm
mainThe Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra does not play in ideal conditions.
During Wednesday night’s concert at the Lighthouse in Poole, a fire alarm went off in an adjacent room where rehearsals were being held for a Christmas pantomime. The alarmwent on ringing for 5 minutes. The soloist was Alexei Volodin, the conductor Antonio Mendez.
We read: …Although the orchestra did not allow the false alarm to interrupt their performance of Rachmaninov’s Concerto No. 2, the disturbance temporarily spoiled the audience’s enjoyment of the music.
So they played on right through the alarm?
=disturbance temporarily spoiled
Surely more than temporarily if five minutes long ?
The Arditti Quartet once did a concert where there was noise from next door (some quiet Nono in Vienna, I think) and Irvine just pulled the plug !
Years ago the same thing happened in Wisconsin with a performance of the Emperor Concerto with Paul Badura-Skoda & Otto-Werner Mueller conducting. Pretty jarring.
That happened at the Albany Symphony a couple of years ago when they were preforming Gould’s 3rd Symphony. But the alarm was right in the concert hall. Luckily the music was mostly fortissimo at the time.
I was at a community orchestra concert last year that got cancelled after the fire alarm went off. It took them an hour to shut it off.