This morning I came across this post on Alex Ross’s blog about a recent skirmish at a London Philharmonic concert of Bruckner’s 4th symphony. Norman Lebrecht, while giving more in depth coverage of the incident, attracted the attention of the instigator, one Alex Verney-Elliott, whose response was posted on Lebrecht’s blog.

Mr. Verney-Elliott, apparently, got up in the middle of the 4th movement and called the performance “rubbish” before storming off, as the YouTube clip on Mr. Ross’s blog shows. I listened and, honestly, it’s barely audible. I understand that unwrapping a piece of gum at a classical performance can sometimes be loud enough to be distracting, due to the lack of amplification and extreme dynamics of the music, but this doesn’t seem to be the case here. What’s more, wasn’t this a common occurence in past eras? Don’t misunderstand me, like some commenters, I think Mr. Verney-Elliott probably should have waited until the end of the performance to “boo”, but mid-performance outbursts have not always been so frowned upon (I’m fairly certain this pertains even to “booing”, which I believe I’ve read about happening at opera houses in Rossini’s day on Greg Sandow’s blog). Essentially, outbursts are an extremely effective way of calling attention the perceived competence level of performers. Of course, the drawback is that those making the noise could be an extreme minority, as Mr Verney-Elliott seems to be.

In any case, the responses are interesting. Calls for “banning” Mr. Verney-Elliott seem ridiculous. While admittedly not going quite this far, it’s almost as if other concert-goers are against having people in the audience who won’t reliably clap at the end, regardless of how they feel about the performance. That’s unfortunate. How often do bad performances receive bad ovations? Or no ovations? Or “booing”? Perhaps Mr. Verney-Elliott was at one end of the politeness-spectrum in this case but it seems to me that the vast majority of listeners are at the other of this spectrum where they aren’t even willing to tell a performer that they sucked. How can things improve in that atmosphere? Critics can pan performances but they’re not necessarily the voice of the people.

So maybe Mr. Verney-Elliott went too far, but I think it only appears to be an extreme actions because of the culture surrounding classical music performances. As one commenter stated, this heckler should maybe have been at a rock or jazz concert where such actions are acceptable. Therein lies the crux of why your average music lover is way more likely to do just that.