Yannick lashes Philly audience for ringing phones
Orchestras‘Can we live without the phone for just one damn hour?’ the conductor demanded last night, after a second cellphone interruption in Bruckner’s 9th symphony.
It’s not often that Mr Cool loses it.
Later, in a message to Peter Dobrin of the Inqiuirer, he claimed ‘it was cellphone [ring] number four’ that provoked his eruption. ‘Philosophically, I think what’s happening is, we do have a new audience coming in and we appreciate that they are coming in. And we’re trying to welcome them to understand the power of being together in a moment of silence and in a moment of complete focus on the music.’
Always look on the bright side.
In hindsight.
Full report here.
Am with Yannick on eventually losing it, it really is a pain in the arse on stage as well as in the audience
He’s not wrong.
No he’s not, yet a few people think we are and given us a thumbs down!!
I agree with you Mr. Lincoln. And he’s ESPECIALLY not wrong given that this is Bruckner’s 9th. If ever a cellphone could maximize a disruption, it’s in this particular piece of music.
The scherzo movement, not so much.
Good for him!!! Telephones have long turned into a disease, a sort pandemic! Before retirement I was a computer programmer and therefore have more than just a nodding acquaintance with the cyber world. However, I refuse to let IT and Co. dictate my life. When I attend a music performance, I do so to enjoy the music and resent anyone’s spoiling it with handys, iPhones and the like. It is not only annoying for others in the audience, it is an insult to the performers. To quote the Rosenkavalier, Act 1: Jedes Ding hat seine Zeit. (For everything there is a proper time.) Please remember that the next time someone near you just HAS TO TURN ON HIS/HER HANDY even during a short pause in a concert or an opera performance and remind him/her that he/she is in a public auditorium, NOT at home where one can do as one pleases!
Yeah, I go to work using a horse as well. Sounds like you retired when they were releasing the first iteration of windows.
The world is different now.
DEAL. WITH. IT
You deal with it by having the courtesy to put your cellphone on silent during a concert. It’s called consideration for others, or are you too stupid and selfish to understand that?
Even the remarkable and consistently courteous Maestro Nézet-Séguin can lose his cool. Let’s remember that he’s working multiple jobs; he’s working very, very hard and could even be under stress.
However, when he loses his cool, he’s vastly more classy then the Bill Clinton of classical music (who is, most definitely, not overworked nor usually courteous).
According to the Chicago Tribune (https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-met-muti-cso-muti-halts-performance-disruption-20180625-story.html), Muti halted a performance and witnesses heard him utter an expletive. Some witnesses say he spoke very “angrily”.
The Tribune, in an uncontrolled and surprising burst of investigative journalism, tried to uncover more and called on the CSO PR head, Eileen Chambers:
“This type of situation does not happen often,” CSO spokeswoman Eileen Chambers said in an emailed statement. “However, if there is a significant disruption during the performance, a conductor may choose to stop the performance, allowing the musicians and the audience to regain focus.”
[…] Chambers said Muti didn’t curse. A review of the CSO’s archival recording of the performance and first-hand accounts of those at the concert prove “no profanity was used during Maestro Muti’s remarks” once he paused the performance, Chambers wrote in an email. She declined to provide the recording and, when asked, did not comment on what Muti said.”
Remember folks, life is uncertain; but where there is a race to the bottom, you know on which winning Stallion you can bet!
While they were at it, the Tribune could have asked Eileen Chambers, or Jeff Alexander directly, what is Muti doing in his typical afternoons in Chicago, between rehearsals and dinners. Sort of, an article a-la Gelb power couple?
That would have been an instructive line of inquiry, and sure to grab the headlines.
Oh but … I forget, Alexander would not know, right?
then why don’t you just enlighten us all if you know what’s going on? i’m guessing you can’t though…because you’re making everything up!
There is a big difference. With Muti, it was just somebody coughing (pre-covid)
So what? Multiple jobs? That’s his choice. Under stress? Give me a break. Comes with the territory.
Can’t stand the heat, get y’er arse out of the kitchen.
I remember this episode very well.
Btw, according to many reports, Muti addressed Chailly, who came to visit him in Milan, as follows: “Fuori dai coglioni!” (“out of my b***s”).
https://scherzo.es/saltan-chispas-entre-muti-y-chailly-en-el-teatro-alla-scala-de-milan/
Personally, I think Bruckner 9 would be improved by interruptions… Preferably several weeks long.
If you can’t bear Bruckner 9, just don’t go to hear it. The rest of the audience, and the musicians, will thank you.
well…..Its music for grown ups with an attention span bigger than an insect,as my mom used to say.
His actions were entirely reasonable and appropriate, so why in explaining after the fact does he almost sound as if he is apologizing.
You might not hang out with many young people, but they are prone to oversensitivity. Yannick was probably trying to make sure their feelings were t hurt so much they stopped attending concerts.
To be fair, the culprits are not always young people. “Old” concert goers – I am one of them – either forget or don’t know how to turn off their phones. I don’t own one, and I never will.
I find that, almost invariably, older concertgoers are the culprits. The ones who can’t understand how to turn off or silence a phone, the ones who talk throughout because why not, the ones who unwrap cough pastilles in the quiet moment because why not, and the ones who shout extra loud so that they can be heard over the fortissimo.
This experience brought to you by the two concerts I went to in the last month, where respectively 4 (!) and 1 cellphone went off at highly conspicuous moments. One went off just as Hilary Hahn was finishing the most exquisite solo Bach encore.
Oh, and the guy who got shouted at by Barenboim for taking pictures during the concert at the Philharmonie in February was also not “young people.” Make of that what you will.
Not it to defend the behavior, but people with hearing loss, regardless of age, may not be able to hear how loud candy wrappers or soft whispering can be. Don’t know what the solution is—for cell phones, maybe before the concert roll a short video showing how to silence the phone? At least Ricolas are wrapped in quiet waxed paper.
I was an usher for the local orchestra and I couldn’t believe the huge number of old people staring at their screens after the concert started.
The orchestra makes no announcement about phones, rather has it printed in the program, where few will see it.
It’s the same at the movie theater. One oldster couldn’t figure out how to turn her screen to black, which must mean that the never does that.
Thanks for pointing it out. The blame may not rest with the “newcomers”. Obviously this is a generalization, but the phone use pattern I’ve observed during concerts is of younger concertgoers texting through a performance, middle-aged ones video recording the concert, and older ones leaving their ringtones on and then struggling to turn it off when they get a call.
I have no problem with his admonishment and am puzzled by NL’s “hindsight” criticism — other than his mocking of all things YNS.
“It’s true that my tone may have been a little bit, like, impatient with it,” said Nézet-Séguin. “But as I also said from the stage, it’s not to be upset with them, not to admonish them, but more to — even if I don’t like the word, it’s the truth — educate also the people who come.”
While I can understand the frustration, Nézet-Séguin should check his privilege. And leave the inauthentic and obviously scripted cleanup job to the professionals. Remember how you got to where you are, Yannick? That lovely relationship with the wealthy donor at the Metropolitan Opera, that no doubt helped to overcome your completely lackluster talent.
Personally, you couldn’t pay me to attend any performance of his/he/him. Particularly Bruckner. Maybe you just weren’t able to captivate the audience. Not surprising. You could try a bubble bath back at the hotel to gain new inspiration, and then perhaps Instagram the experience as a companion piece.
Oh well, so it goes.
Oh, so it was YOU with the phone!!
That was FUNNY, Sue!
A cellphone ringing in the audience—unlike coughing or rustling—is not an indication of less-than-captivated listeners. It’s an indication of poorly-trained listeners, who don’t know (or care enough) how to put their phones into “airplane” and silent modes.
Sounds like you’re a jealous and overlooked wannabe conductor. Easy to slag others from anonymity. Enjoy it. It’s all you’ve got.
Says the member of the Yannick fan club. Actually I have a lot more, but that’s a nice story you crafted. My criticism of him must have really got under your skin. Maybe you should ask yourself “why”?
The fact that you felt the need to make the toxic comments at all tells all of us we should probably feel sorry for you. Buck up old man. Life can be sweet, ya know?
Because it’s rude.
All this – and anonymously. Of course. Shocker.
Can we live without Yannick making a spectacle of himself for just one damn hour? Did he have a special uniform for this concert when eyes are SUPPOSED to be watching the conductor and musicians? Or does he just dress like a clown at the opera?
Another jealous wannabe. So sad. Move along little fellow. Go be bitter somewhere else.
Ah, yes I see you’re an apologist for the Maestro. Lovely. I’m glad he has such a loyal fan base, much like a certain ex-President here.
Wrong topic.
I’ve been to concerts in Beijing, China and they don’t tolerate cell phones – you can’t even get into the hall with one. They take them from you, like hat check. It’s all very efficient and secure (I hope) and very effective. Cell phones – and the rude, selfish owners – are a pox on society.
I’ve been to concerts too in Beijing, at the Egg. People had cell phones. They went off. It was just like being at any concert hall in the world.
China has no problem with law and order.
Just check your liberty and freedom at coat check, too
It´s a pest….A totally degenerate,dumb,zombie like generation, totally unviable without those devices….Over the last year or so,there was virtually no concert i attended or played in without cellphone interruptions…4 times in Kirill Petrenko´s Berlin Phil Frau ohne Schatten in Baden Baden alone,always in quite passages…The slow mvt of Schubert´s B-major Piano Trio was completely ruined by two cellphone alarms,so was the slow mvt of Shostakovich´s 15th symphony…..Would like to know how people like Kurt Masur would react against this disrespectful, idiotic behaviour( i remember how he chastised relentless coughers after interrupting the 3rd mvt of Shostakovich 5).
On the other hand, people from the outside-in might look at you like a relic of the past from a bye-gone era. Just sayin’.
People without culture,basic behaviour,education,social skills,yes…..They don´t interest me even remotely.Not in my class.
Perhaps he could have politely asked they why they’re so needy that they cannot be without phone contact for single minute. It’s incredibly rude but also very sad.
Please, if you’re going to a concert, just sms your friends and relatives that you won’t be able to answer the phone for 2 hours!! Either that or get a secretary to do the job for you, lest you miss out on something of earth-shattering importance!! You know you’re a star; but let somebody else be a star for one night. If you please.
Some of the worst cell phone manners I’ve seen were exhibited by elderly people. Most recently at a performance of the Mahler 2nd where a phone started ringing, getting louder with each ring and the 80 something year old woman couldn’t hear it. Someone tapped her. She fumbles around in the purse, gets the damned thing but then couldn’t figure out how to shut it off. Ruined the 2nd movement completely.
I’m not a Bruckner guy, but one thing I am certain about – the only worse thing than listening to Bruckner, is listening you Yannick conducting Bruckner. He is the perfect pops conductor.
Bruckner is indeed a bore but people paid money to hear him – undisturbed – and that is the issue here. And elsewhere any public gathering occurs.
It´s music for grown ups with an attention span bigger than an insect,as my mom used to say.
Some might think the same of you. I’ve heard the members of the orchestra really adore him, which is more than members of the Dallas orchestra thought of you.
If you’re truly Jaap van Zweden, you are, indeed, a “Bruckner guy”. One of my best recordings of B8 is conducted by you in the Netherlands.
At least he is way better than Jaap VZ
I’m not sure how to react.
On the one hand, who doesn’t love a conductor taking a stand against cell phones?
On the other, according to posters on this website, YNS is a disgrace because he paints his fingernails.
So then are we to believe that YNS has no right to take a stand against cell phones until he stops painting his fingernails?
A prescient souvenir from 1998 (note final paragraph).
https://www.nytimes.com/1998/12/31/arts/a-reprimand-for-concert-coughers.html
Thanks to “e-tickets”, increasing numbers of opera and concert goers bring their scan-able tix on their phone. This means a likely increase in ringing phones during performances as they forget to turn the phone off when the house lights go down. Yannick must have hated the two interruptions in Act I of his Met matinee BOHEME on Saturday. But then, he had the orchestra playing so loud much of the time that he may not have noticed.
He’s got chops!! Good for him chastising the super-needy who cannot let go of their phones.
Jerry Seinfeld has the answer to anyone who thinks they might be missing an important call…
“No. They’re calling *you*.”
I attended Friday afternoon’s performance, and it was beautiful. Perhaps the lack of interruption between the extremely soft ending of the ‘Christus Factus Est’ motet and the equally soft beginning of the symphony was a bit theatrical, as was the juxtaposition of the quiet end of the symphony and the powerful begnning of the Te Deum. But the performances were beautiful, though one could quibble sometimes about lyricism being substituted for the austere beauty of the symphony. When I saw the white-haired audience on Friday afternoon, I thought that performing this program to that audience was something like Saint Anthony’s Sermon to the Fish, but the audience was remarkably quiet throughout; no cell phones, no early departures, no coughing or other audience noise. The performance received an unusually enthusiastic ovation from the audience at the end, who didn’t spoil the effect by premature applause.
The Friday audience, in my experience, might have lots of white hair, but it also tends to be the best informed, with many former musicians.
Thank you Maestro. Somebody has to say something. It’s incredibly annoying for performers and other audience members. He had 3 phone rings during last night’s Boheme at the Met. He kept cool and didn’t interrupt the performance.
He knows when he can flip out and when he can’t. Audiences need to be more responsible though.
Stokowski was famous for admonishing his Philadelphia audience, and he is smiling down upon his successor.
Ponder the poor guy’s dilemma. There’s a certain strain of thought…classical music needs to lighten up, embrace the rhythms of modern life, stop taking itself so seriously…if you really want an experience so concentrated and quiet that a little interruption is such a biggie, maybe you need to go join all those Great DWMs where they are now….
And YNS is on both sides here. The offending concertgoers might’ve missed the announcements because they were on their phones reading about the maestro’s cutesy costumes.
The problem is that the world in which we like to have noisemakers and quick-fix devices in our pockets all day is not very compatible with the world in which one might listen to a Bruckner symphony. Yes, turn ’em off, but somebody’s gonna forget…and there goes the experience for everybody else.
No easy answers here.
it’s not about who’s conducting which composer, or who chooses to paint his nails, it’s about Civility, especially when we’re paying $200 a ticket. it is so very simple: SILENCE YOUR DEVICE! there. wasn’t that easy?
FWIW, no problems at the Friday afternoon concert.
He did the right thing. There is no “education” for these things.
Nothing wrong with what he did – or Alan Gilbert a decade ago. Other than his association with the hated Met, I don’t know why this blog insists on lambasting Yannick at every turn.
Any form of concert interruption is unwelcome for both audience and musicians. Decades ago a blog site like this would no doubt be inundated with posts about coughing. Yet some people would always say that coughing is a natural and often uncontrolled action. That is generally true – and yet coughers could still have taken measures to mitigate the interruption. I recall LSO concerts in the early 1970s when the front of each programme booklet had a large note for those who might cough or sneeze. They were asked to place a handkerchief on their laps which could very quickly be grabbed to muffle the noise. With handkerchiefs now less common, just a tissue can be almost as effective. Yet still we have to suffer coughing without any attempt made to muffle the sound.
Mobile phones are a curse because those who do not switch them to silent just do not even think about the disturbance their stupidity will cause others. And even with announcements at the start about switching phones off, they are immediately switched back on at the interval where their selfishness results in phones remaining switched on because the pre-concert announcement has been forgotten. It’s not just at arts performances. It’s hardly uncommon today for someone to be holding a conversation on a phone when watching a movie.
We live in a selfish society! While confiscating phones prior to entry could cause all sorts of confusion, I still fail to understand why places of entertainment cannot just block signals for the duration of an event. I have heard various excuses why this can not be done. Yet in this day and age I just do not believe that technologically it should continue to be impossible.
Was in a WPO concert and a women had a coughing spell. She said next to the ailse but did make no effort to get up and out to cough outside. Horrible.
Regarding cell phones – there are some people that need to be available for e.g. emergencies so that is not doable.
This is how to really do it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uub0z8wJfhU
Back in 1976 I attended a performance of the Broadway run of Enid Bagnold’s „A Matter of Gravity“ starring Katharine Hepburn.
When Hepburn made her entrance a few minutes into the first act – through French doors using a cane – there was, of course, applause, but then someone took a flash photograph.
Hepburn quickly moved down to the footlights, raised her cane, and yelled „Get that pig out of here“! She waited till ushers removed the photographer and then exited. The curtain came down, and we started over again.
At her solo curtain call, Hepburn raised her hands for quiet and addressed the audience, along the lines of: „I am sorry about my language but if someone has to ruin your good time and mine, then he has no place here“.
Instead of the always-wimpy audio recordings of „Please be sure to switch off your mobile phones“ I would much rather have a video of that moment in Act One shown to audiences before the concert/show starts.
A friend of mine who is an actor and a stage director, recently advised the audience to take calls and make sure to always take pictures with the flash on because otherwise they might not be clear.As you can imagine, he was particularly brilliant in Ubu roi.
Sadly mobile phone interruptions are nothing new, I was at a Royal Opera performance over 20 years ago of Der Rosenkavalier with Fleming, when someone’s Nokia went off loudly in the final trio.
Most offenders are just making themselves “important”. “Look at me! I just MUST take this call!” After 30 working years working during which I practically had to be accountable for my time and location, I am THRILLED when no one knows where I am or what I am doing!!! Whoever wants to contact me, regardless of where or when, will just have to WAIT until such time and I deem it correct to check my handy, which will NOT be during a concert or an opera performance. More power to conductors and auch audience members who are not bashful about confronting the offenders!!!!
He’s absolutely right.
It’s got to the point where I only enjoy dress rehearsals, because I get to hear music without phones chiming, bottles dropping, velcro ripping, bangles jingling, pages turning, lungs decongesting, ushers berating, protesters ssshhhussshing…
Call me old-fashioned, but what makes great music great is also what requires silence to fully ingest it; Reverence. A forgotten concept.
He is right. There is always at least one and it is always (of course) coming in into the absolutely pianissimo loveliest parts and ramming us back to earth. How difficult is it to put it into vibrate mode? My phone is always in that mode. Remember the NYP Gilbert incident?
The incident was a board member’s phone going off just as Mahler 9th’s last movement was dying away.
Can you imagine how Toscanini would have handled this situation?
I also attended Friday afternoon’s concert, full of geriatric people including me. I heard one cell phone (in a loud passage) and one coughing fit.
I can understand Yannick’s frustration because he worked to achieve a reverential mood. He managed to move from the motet to the Ninth, and from the Adagio to the Te Deum, without audience applause.
Yannick’s Bruckner reminded me of Solti’s, which I admired decades ago. I still admire that approach, though undoubtedly the Yannick haters and Bruckner haters (very much in evidence on SD) will take their opportunity.
The motet and Te Deum worked well. Yannick is a wonderful choral conductor. He is a mediocre Bruckner conductor when it comes to the symphonies. The Friday performance sounded severely underrehearsed and was less interesting than the one he led here in 2014. That does suggest to me that he needs to spend more time off of the podium and on airplanes. He has a lot to offer, but I fear he is not developing the way I’d hoped.
While it’s incredibly annoying to hear a cell phone go off during a concert, I can understand that someone may have forgotten to put it on silent. What I find to be a far less forgivable transgression is when people check their phones/text during a concert. This is not simply an act of forgetfulness but a deliberate act of disrespect to performers and audience members alike. The bright light of the phone screen never fails to break the lovely trance under which the music had placed me. I fully support a suspension of the 8th Amendment for such criminals.
Your headline and tone would suggest this is a bad thing. How so?
The world that Bruckner wrote for has long ago been technologized away. Anyway, you can probably hear the “important” measures in the ring tones
Brilliant, that this conductor interrupted the performance to scold the morons who neglected to put their phones on silent. Should happen more often.
I was there on Saturday night, and it was one of the great Bruckner concerts of my life, cell phones, admonition, and all. The inclusion of the motet and the “Te Deum” might be viewed as something of a stunt, but what a fascinating presentation. Also, beautifully played and, at times, even thrilling. My preference for the Ninth will always be for three movements, but it was rewarding to experience it “Yannick’s way.” Those who were not there should not criticize, but rather think themselves accurs’d and hold their manhoods cheap, etc. Anyone with the ability to pull off a concert like that can paint his nails any color he wants.
Good for Yannick! Audience etiquette has taken a nose-dive. Cellphones are a plague on all of us. I don’t think many of them realize how hard the folks on the stage work to perfect their craft. I wish more conductors would engage the rudeness head on. Bravo!