CBSO invites you to disturb another soloist
OrchestrasTonight’s programme for James Ehnes playing the Schumann violin concerto contains this invitation:
We are very happy for you to take photographs and short video clips at our concerts, but please refrain from recording the whole performance. We do ask that you are mindful of disturbing artists and other audience members and therefore ask that you dim the brightness on your phone, take pictures and videos during applause breaks and do not use your flash.
They have plainly learned nothing from the Bostridge incident.
Depressing
I love this! I’ll try to get tickets and take my niece with me who is a prof fashion photographer, she has fantastic spotlights and loves music. In this way, such dull concerts suddenly become attractive and enjoyable!
Sally
Tell us if you are trying to be funny
Sorry about that… I’ll try to fire her again.
Did Mr. Ehnes approve this? Was he even asked?
That was my first thought. This “policy” ought to be absolutely contingent upon artist agreement. Playing the violin seems to me the closest to singing in terms of sensitivity to external influences, and I shudder to think what happens when the snap-happies decide his expression is particularly interesting during an especially difficult or evocative moment.
As an audience member, often when Mr. Ehnes was playing, I feel outrage at the very notion of seeing all those smartphones lifted while I am trying to LISTEN. I am reminded of a cartoon in one of the heavies showing a group of 6 at a restaurant table, every one of them glued to their phones. If people do not want a live experience, whether it be dining with friends or watching and listening to a great artist perform, stay home and wait for the video (shot in approved circumstances by a professional). If you cannot engage with actual live people, sod off.
And thumbs definitely down to the exec at the CBSO approving this nonsense without any consideration for the artist, especially as the effects of Ian Bostridge’s response must surely have been reported to her. Neither artists nor the rest of the audience — the attentive, interested ones actually there to hear the music — want to hear an interrupted version of a piece. WAKE UP. Who exactly are you catering to here?
Stop trying to replicate the pop concert arena experience in a concert hall. People can enjoy both — but those who do know the difference in the experiences. Not saying there have never been boors in the classical world, but in the not too distant past the ushers would quietly have removed them if they were causing a distraction to the artists or fellow audience members.
This smacks of trying to squeeze the Radio 2 crowd into the Radio 3 format. Here’s news: they ain’t biting, and all you are doing is driving the Radio 3 listeners elsewhere. Policies like this will single-handedly revive the CD industry.
James was asked and happily agreed, as did Markus. There were no problems at all.
Whether Mr Ehnes approved this I certainly wouldn’t as a paying member of the audience which is why I will not be paying to attend CBSO concerts.
You will have missed an amazing concert. Ehnes was just magical in the Schumann, and the the Bruckner was appropriately monumental, with the orchestra sounding fabulous. Ehnes also gave a great, thoughtful and humorous interview in the bar before the concert. Overall, a great experience. I wish people would stop moaning.
I simply do not understand the CBSO management stubbornness. It seems like a recalcitrant arrogance. What is wrong with them? What does it take before they’ll learn and adapt?
It is exactly that. Suspect the current CEO is so convinced of her crusade that alienating her audience is actually a positive for her.
It will take a drop in audience numbers and thus revenue as long time attendees drift away to other venues to watch real classical concerts
Oh dear. This ignorant CEO really should be fired for sabotaging the orchestra.
James Ehnes is a lovely, kind and diligent violinist (also an outstanding virtuoso- not many violinists offer fiendishly difficult Ysaye encores while being a jump in!) who is wonderful to audiences, fans and students. What a horrible thing to do to him.
I expect he will be too polite to complain but will either face away from the audience if the glare from phones gets in his eyes a lot or will simply pretend he is in some surreal community outreach programme eg a church hall or railway station where people filming on phones is the norm. Maybe the Symphony Hall stage manager should just keep the auditorium lights on to minimise the glare. But it’s really disrespectful to all the well behaved audience as well as the performers.
I hope Maestro Stenz will not be too polite to complain about such a deplorable situation.
CBSO programmes have carried a similar note for well over a year now (in fact if anything the message is slightly tougher)- long before the new CEO took office, and this is the first incident of its kind. I was present, it was indeed annoying, and disturbed a wonderful performance of a glorious work. However I do sense an increasingly bitchy campaign against the new CEO…
I’m not sure that’s fair -but, whether it is or not, it’s worth bearing in mind also that many of Ms Stenning’s critics feel genuinely hurt and alienated by recent events. There is always a subtext that we, the existing audience, are (actually quite a major) part of the problem – intolerant, entitled ‘elitists’ who have no concern for the future of the orchestra beyond their own (probably imminent) demise. That’s just so far from the truth. I’m no better or worth than most concert goers, but am always deeply concerned at the empty seats and majority of grey heads around me. Hence I, and I think many others’ make every effort to be particularly tolerant of and welcoming to, people who are younger or do not seem to be regulars – to the point often, of not complaining about the use of mobiles when you’re actually being distracted by them.
A lot of unpleasantness would have been avoided if keen concertgoers has been treated as what they are, loyal and committed friends of the orchestra.
I’ll tell you a little story about one particular CBSO concert goer :
About 8 years ago I took a group of exceptionally well behaved year 10s to a CBSO concert to write a written review of it. They were all engaged and had questions to make notes on. In the interval, this deeply unpleasant woman marched up to me to tell me that my students had spoiled her enjoyment of the concert by turning the pages of their notebooks. Fact was, we were in the top tier, many, many empty seats and she could have moved a couple of rows further down if it was really that bad, which it wasn’t. This may have put those kids off classical music
They notice in the programme used to be about taking photos. The reference to filming is new.
At last. Someone who has a more measured response. This article is filled with comments from pearl clutchers who don’t seem to propose anything other than continuing the gradual demise of concerts of orchestral music.
I don’t have a proposal either, I’m afraid. But I will give time for others to try different approaches because, people, I’m afraid the status quo is just not an option any longer.
Unless you are privately educated, you will not have been given the opportunity to even begin to experience the wonders of orchestral playing. The CBSO have made a groundbreaking start by establishing the Shireland Academy but it will take many years and hundreds of similar institutions before that feeds through. Will there still be a CBSO by then?
That makes no difference: she is in post now – has been for a year. The buck stops…. Sort it!
He played the concerto in Oxford last Saturday and again did the Ysaye Ballade as encore, followed by Bach.
One way to deal with this as CBSO treats its audience with such contempt is for audience members to demand and make sure they get a full refund of their ticket on the grounds that their enjoyment of the concert was ruined by amateur video makers.
There is no place in a classical music concert for mobile phones.
…and so prevent less well-off members of the audience from downloading the programme for free? And bankrupt the orchestra? This is the first incident of its kind in the 18months this has been allowed.
Next step: bring a bottle of wine and some snacks! And if someone calls you during the performance: by all means, take the call! It could be important. But please try to keep your voice somewhat down.
You can also have pizza delivered provided the motor bike does not get driven into the auditorium.
In fact, such trend is returning to the way the first public concerts in the 18th century were experienced – a nice evening out, with eating and drinking and chatting. (Mozart was much pleased and flattered if the audience at his Akademies became silent during his performances.) Only in the course of the 19th century, when the first public concert halls were built, specially intended for classical music concerts, the awareness emerged that listening in silence and concentration gives the best returns of investment of attention and money. Then this became tradition. What is happening now, is that such awareness is eroding at places where understanding of and interest in the art form is eroding.
You can snack on popcorn at the Proms these days
Does the CBSO management really believe that potential photographers and video-makers are going to get their heads around the qualifications and semi-contradictions in this jumble of exhortations and permissions?
Disrespectful to all the musicians, not just the soloists.
I can say this. With this idea in place I will NEVER attend a concert in Birmingham.
John Kelly – please, please don’t – the only way to counter these things is from within; and besides, these wonderful musicians of the CBSO need our support, not abdication. Last night’s concert was superb as ever. Mr Ehnes played with wonderful style and elegance, and Bruckner 7 was an epic experience. Nothing is to be gained by not going. Please attend! And bring friends!
I second that, yes. It was a really terrific concert (Stenz’s Bruckner was first-rate) – and with no audience issues that I was aware of. A relief to be reminded that all is far from lost…
Lloyd I live in NY but travel to my home country (Yorkshire) a lot. We have the same hall here in Dallas (and Fabio Luisi!) where such nonsense would not be tolerated. As the announcement at Carnegie Hall before concerts says “turn your phone off so you can have a transcendent experience.” Note it doesn’t say “film a transcendent experience.”………………
It sees that not only have the barbarians breached the walls, they’re now managing things.
And one can think of other organisations of which this could be said.
Having actually PRESENTED James in concert, this language is apart of his standard rider. Try again everyone – I applaud this and hope more companies do it. Classical music is changing and audiences are changing. And yes musicians philosophy on how they present is changing too. The days of playing to an audience are gone – now it’s time to play FOR them.
Wrong.
Such comment is the result of an entirely misconceived idea of democracy in the realm of culture: the egalitarian world view, where any cultural product is as good as any other, so that culture will be about inclusion, not about quality standards (which are understood as exclusive in the wrong, anti-democratic, elitist sense).
The only effective measure to develop new audiences is through information and education. Catering to the ignorance of youngsters is like adapting university curricula to what students know already.
That’s fine. Just don’t expect me to attend. Watch audiences fall off…. It’s depressing enough watching the Proms being dumbed down today. It used to be delight after delight. Now it’s inclusive rubbish. Ugh. Bye bye. I’ll stick to my CD collection. I’ve almost given up on Radio 3….
Why pay for a ticket to a concert or an album by CBSO when you can download the entire show filmed with the CEO’s encouragement on a bootleg video at Symphony Hall? If monetised, the ads will more than pay for a ticket to go inside to film it. Then the soloists’ jobs will disappear as nobody will buy tickets and instead will watch it for free online, and the presenters’ jobs will disappear too.
I’ll stick with the concert halls, orchestras and promoters who respect performers and paying audience, and insist on switching on of digital screens, filming or photography being restricted to the bows after the music has ended and to intermissions.
When an orchestra has a “guest” soloist then the orchestra management should behave like a “host.” This seems like an invitation to chaos. Enough of this crap goes on when it is specifically forbidden.
True story — years ago my wife and I attended a festival performance that began with Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream overture. The second work was Honegger’s Symphony No. 4, “Deliciae Basiliensis,” which I had never before heard in concert. Someone nearby in the audience had taped the Mendelssohn and, evidently finding the Honegger insufficiently bracing for his tastes, decided to listen instead to a replay of his tape of the Mendelssohn …. NOT over headphones but thru the tinny little speakers on his tape machine. Only the glares and reactions of his seat neighbors evidently informed him that this was unwelcomed and inappropriate.
The evening was memorable in two other ways. At intermission after the Symphony a different individual a few rows behind us, a locally prominent artist, stood up and immediately dropped to the ground. Dead. It took nearly a quarter of an hour for an ambulance to arrive, futile and too late. Eventually the concert resumed and after a few dozen measures of the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1, the soloist José Feghali found fault with the piano and would not continue until it was addressed.
And two nights later at the same festival the featured work was Mussorgsky’s Songs and Dances of Death in the Shostakovich orchestration ….
I WISH I’d been there!
It is only going to get worse…. Soprano Ms C Georke and some of her colleagues actively endorse audiences from bringing drinks and snacks to operas and recitals Sippy cup for the “hamsters” that cannot go an hour without drinking – with drinks in cups with rattling icecubes – or eating crunchy snacks.
Mozart used to write music for garden parties, so maybe that’s the way to go for current composers?
Of course!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYVSHTUBtmY
Why doesn’t the CBSO professionally record all concert performances and make them available to the public (or ticket holders)?
The rock band Phish used to allow fans to tape concerts and freely distribute the bootlegs. (Perhaps this is one reason for how they built up a large and loyal fan base in spite of not being played on the radio or MTV). They never banned the “tapers” but, these days, the tapers are gone. Why? Because the band distributes a sound board quality recording of EVERY show to fans who’ve purchased tickets to said concerts.
Concert goes would be far less likely to record video clips if they know a pro quality recording is going to be made available to them right after the show.
Well, this is a response to an ongoing issue that is going to be ongoing for an ongoing length of time.
But…
This will have an outcome and they, and we, will have the opportunity to learn something from this ‘experiment’. Maybe the next concert will modify the protocols accordingly. Who knows?
I’ll just wait and see for now
I’m pleased to report that the concert passed without incident and James Ehnes played the seldom-heard Schumann Violin Concerto beautifully and followed it with a dazzling rendition of the Ysaye 3rd Sonata as encore (without being dazzled!) From my vantage point, I saw no use of phones or iPads.
The instruction is rather confused. At the end it does say “… take photos and videos during applause breaks…”
If they mean “…take videos and photos ONLY during applause breaks….” then the whole message could be much simplified.
No photos during the performance, no flashes, and keep the phone brightness down. The rest is confusing blurb.
Similar things happening in sport with dumbing down to appeal to the young.
The problem really is two fold
Personally I don’t like disruption of any kind during any sort of event it could be a jangly bracelet or rustling of a bag etc That’s just me
So someone fiddling with a mobile even with a darkened screen is hugely distracting I’m open minded and very much in favor of attracting new audiences I’m also not a fuddy duddy who tells people off at the slightest thing
Secondly any photo or video clip can end uo instantly anywhere in the world or on any site in the world in an instant If you look on YouTube you will find clips of pirated concerts from all over the world
It must be frustrating for a performer to look out and see filming going on and where it will end up
Yes by all means take pics beforehand or during applause but not footage of the actual concert
To mean that doesn’t seem rocket science to work out
The cbso has a resident photographer who is present at most concerts let him or her do that side of things