World’s costliest concert hall is farting hell

World’s costliest concert hall is farting hell

Orchestras

norman lebrecht

May 19, 2023

We publish unredacted an appeal by Andreas Schmidt, editor of a German music website:

klassik-begeistert.de politely asks all those responsible – from the senator to the artistic director – for music evenings without “burping and farting” in the most expensive concert hall in the world: in the Elbphilharmonie, which is financed solely by Hamburg’s taxpayers. Certainly the Hamburg taxpayers didn’t spend their good money on noise and embarrassment in the Great Hall. The solution is very simple: a clear address for uninformed concertgoers.

You only have one choice, dear Herr Lieben-Seutter: you decide in favor of culture and against the stupidity and dullness of the ignorant. Against a pseudo-democratic (anti-social) minority acceptance that spoils the evening for the vast majority, which generates most of the proceeds. But since when has the loud, belching minority dictated how the music plays to the culture-loving majority?

 

Illustration: from a recent demo at the Elbphilharmonie

Comments

  • Rob Keeley says:

    Must be the sausages…

  • guest says:

    It’s probably just me, but I have trouble reading phrases like “eine pseudodemokratische (asoziale) Minoritätenakzeptanz,” without thinking of a very unfortunate time not so long ago. OTH, the comment is so unclearly written (also the German version) that it’s difficult to know what he’s talking about, much less if it is ironic.

  • Tamino says:

    Wouldn’t have happened in a shoebox. But now they built a circus, they get a circus.

  • Greg Hlatky says:

    Perhaps the solution is for Hamburg taxpayers to spend more of their money to have audioanimatronic clapping machines installed at the Elbphilharmonie so that the musicians can have their tender egos validated without having their sacred artistic temple violated by stupid, dull ignoramuses.

  • zandonai says:

    I would gladly take burping and farting over ill-timed applause and unmuffled coughs.

  • John W. Norvis says:

    It’s a natural reaction by a well-fed and nourished audience to performances in concert halls generously supported by the state.

    The hacking coughs in American concerts point a damning finger at the nonexistent healthcare system in a country that spends $700B a year on the military instead of on the opera.

    • Una says:

      I go to hear the met in a very deprived city, called Bradford, in West Yorkshire. It never ceases to amaze me and those who turn out for the relays, that whilst there is total silence in our cinema from our audience, there is endless hacking coughs coming over the airwaves from the New York Met!

  • Gustavo says:

    Hafenrundfart

  • SlippedChat says:

    Bring in Yannick. “Could we do without the farting for one damn hour?” Printed tote (tod?) bags to follow.

  • Rich Patina says:

    To air is human, to forgive divine.

  • Jennifer Dyster says:

    I have no idea what he is talking about!

  • IP says:

    Give me a clear description of the problem and I will comment.

  • Alexander Graham Cracker says:

    Sound-absorbent seat cushions?

  • Doc Martin says:

    Nutritionist Orla Walsh at the Dublin Nutrition Centre reported in The Daily Edge a while ago on the increased production of flatus emissions after several pints of Stout. Guinness contains twice the hops as normal beer, the report says it agitates gut bacteria due to acid production and they retaliate by producing foul smelling farts which clear rooms in under 3 minutes. Dublin airport had to be evacuated I recall over this very problem.

    https://www.dailyedge.ie/guinness-farts-smell-so-bad-because-2437185-Nov2015/

  • J.Lautman says:

    As in most other human endeavors, it’s all in the timing. A series of solid rip-roarers of either description could be quite welcome in place of cannon fire in the 1812 Overture, but even the most modest of the popcorn variety would not be tolerated in the last few bars of Mahler 9. One might think.of many other examples pro and con, such as the end of the oboe cadenza in Beethoven 5 (con) or the downbeats in “The Beautiful Blue Danube” (pro).

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