{"id":3617,"date":"2012-01-18T14:12:18","date_gmt":"2012-01-18T18:12:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=3617"},"modified":"2012-03-18T15:50:47","modified_gmt":"2012-03-18T19:50:47","slug":"cellphones-and-their-ilk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=3617","title":{"rendered":"Cellphones and Their Ilk"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Sedgwick Clark<\/strong> \u00a0<\/p>\n

Many years ago I was sitting next to the p.r.\u00a0director of the Berlin Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall when a cellphone went off as\u00a0Simon Rattle conducted.\u00a0When the piece ended I\u00a0asked him if that happened in Berlin.\u00a0“Everywhere,” he said sadly.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

I left for vacation two days\u00a0after the cellphone brouhaha at the New York Philharmonic last week, when\u00a0the ringer\u00a0in front-row center went off during the last page of Mahler’s Ninth and Alan Gilbert courageously stopped the orchestra until the thing was turned off.\u00a0The explanation and the miscreant’s subsequent phone\u00a0apology to\u00a0Maestro\u00a0Gilbert\u00a0got loads of coverage, even on television. But as I passed through the airline’s frisker at Newark Airport I had no doubt what should be done: All concertgoers should be required to pass through metal detectors, and those who fail the test must check their cellphones, blackberries, iphones, et al. in the coat room before they are allowed to enter the concert hall.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

Unmuffled coughing (nearly always in a quiet moment)\u00a0is\u00a0annoying enough, but I’ve yet to encounter anyone with a good word to say about cellphone beepers in concerts. I recall the woman at a Philharmonic matinee over ten years ago who answered her cellphone to say loudly, “I can’t\u00a0talk now\u2014I’m in a concert.” Valery Gergiev ignored her, but I’ll bet Kurt Masur would have turned around and let her have it. (Which reminds me of the\u00a0story of\u00a0Sir Thomas Beecham conducting the final six widely spaced chords of Sibelius’s Fifth and several audience members applauding prematurely; he turned around and bellowed, “Savages,” before turning back to the orchestra and finishing the symphony without skipping a beat.) \u00a0<\/p>\n

I wonder what Herbert von Karajan would have done?\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

Gilbert’s Mahler<\/strong><\/p>\n

I heard the first\u00a0of the series of Gilbert’s Mahler Ninths and found myself\u00a0among the “some”\u00a0mentioned by the Times<\/em>‘s\u00a0Tony Tommasini who might prefer a more emotional\u2014nay, intense, searching, devastating\u2014interpretation. I cannot go without mentioning Principal Cellist Carter Brey’s solo just before the last page of the work, which in a few seconds conveyed all the Mahlerian eloquence and\u00a0heart-rending depth\u00a0I found missing from the other 80 minutes. There are many extraordinary musicians in the Philharmonic, and Brey is among the uppermost.<\/p>\n