This past Saturday, the Arnica Quartet (of which I am the founding violist), performed Britten’s Third String Quartet at the Portland Art Museum as part of its Venice exhibition (which runs through May 11th). We played in the excellent Whitsell Auditorium, which is nominally the home of the Northwest Film Center, but does occasionally host musical events. If it had a real backstage area and a good piano, it would be the go to performance space for chamber music in downtown Portland. As we played the first movement of the quartet, we became aware of some sounds in the auditorium which did not quite ‘belong’. The second movement is quite a loud and obnoxious movement, so things were not quite as evident to us on stage. By the third movement, which is a very Shostakovich in its mood, an eerie movement, with high, stratospherically high, notes in the first violin, these sounds, which turned out to be human in origin (but not quite obviously so at first) also went into full cry. Someone was clearly reacting to the music in a very visceral, unchecked fashion. By the last movement, when more physical reactions were being exhibited, the source of the disturbance left the hall, and the quartet came to its soft and ambiguous ending in peace.
It turns out that there was a differently-abled person in the audience – in the front row (or nearly so) as it turns out, and on the far right of the audience portion of the hall (and hence behind my back). He was with his parents, who had taken him to the concert. He evidently had been very moved by the music, and unlike those of us who have full control over (some) of our higher functions, he gave voice to whatever he was feeling each moment. So his keening along with the eerie music of the third movement made complete sense, as did his increasingly agitated state during the second movement – the rough and fast Burlesque. As this was going on, I was thinking to myself, “ok, there is something going on in the audience. I’m not sure what it is, but I just need to concentrate.” This was followed by “geez, whatever that is, I wish it would stop or they would leave, it’s getting difficult to tune this out.” Then “I feel badly for the audience, those around this person must be having a difficult time getting into the music”. And finally “I shouldn’t be judging this person, they aren’t doing it on purpose and likely cannot control it”. And then I miscounted my entrance in the last movement Passacaglia.
I’m sure that many in the audience went through the same inner monologue. In the end, our performance was greeted very warmly and appreciatively. It didn’t seem to matter what had happened during the performance, from the standpoint of what had taken place off stage. In fact, might the performance actually been enhanced by the vocalizations? I mean, here was a person who was obviously profoundly moved by what we were playing – a great, final quartet by one of the great composers of the 20th – or any other – century. Isn’t that what we, as performers, aim to do? Isn’t ‘reaching just one audience member’ enough? It’s what we tell our donors when we ask for money for special needs appropriate concerts, isn’t it? It’s what we aim for at every concert, isn’t it? To reach just one person in a profound and meaningful way, that is mission accomplished.
This isn’t to say that unwrapping a cough drop during the final bars of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony, or talking to your lover at the opening of the slow movement of Beethoven’s Seventh, or unleashing a 90 decibel cough at the quietest moment of a work of Alban Berg isn’t profoundly annoying to both the performers and your fellow audience members. Most of us can control when we cough, open a cough drop (before the piece begins, natch), or talk to our concert companion, and we should. Please, clap between movements. Stamp your feet, even, when it’s really great. Shout, cheer, even do that two-handed country whistle thing that deafens everyone in a 25 yard radius. I don’t care – whoop it up! Even boo if you hate it – I might like that even more! But please, be kind to your fellow audience members, most of whom hear what you do much more clearly than those of us on stage. They paid good money for their tickets, too, and they didn’t pay to hear Brahms’ Concerto for Hacking Cough, Violin, and Orchestra.