Funny things overheard at concerts :D

[Novi]

I've heard a couple of good ones recently .

During the interval at an Olli Mustonen recital:
     'They're tuning the piano - he must be a perfectionist.'

At an Adès/Chamber Orchestra of Europe concert, just before his Three Studies after Couperin:
     'Is this the Adès?'
     'I'm afraid so.'

[Mahlered]

At a performance of Mahler's Seventh:
            "Gustav Mahler? Oh, one of those guys Alma was married to other than Werfel."

[Renfield]

"Is that the conductor? But he's got Parkinson's!"  - An elderly lady, commenting on Kurt Masur before a Schumann concert earlier this year.

"I thought it was a quiet, sad, lyric piece..." - Same elderly lady, expressing disappointment about Mahler's 6th, from a concert two weeks prior to the above.

(I was sitting next to her, and we had both been to both concerts. Not exactly "overheard", but I wasn't doing the talking. )

[mahlertitan]

"I thought it was a quiet, sad, lyric piece..." - Same elderly lady, expressing disappointment about Mahler's 6th, from a concert two weeks prior to the above.

I wouldn't entirely disagree with her, what if she had fallen sleep, but woke up during the "Andante", but took a bathroom break during the finale....

[greg]

At a performance of Mahler's Seventh:
            "Gustav Mahler? Oh, one of those guys Alma was married to other than Werfel."

wow, that's pretty bizarre

[Renfield]

I wouldn't entirely disagree with her, what if she had fallen sleep, but woke up during the "Andante", but took a bathroom break during the finale....

I think I didn't get her tone right, mainly because I omitted a critical word in translating that comment. A more accurate translation would be:

"But I [prevously] thought it was a quiet, sad, lyric piece..."

As in: "they told me it would be sad and lyrical, but that wasn't what I heard!" She was really irked.

[mahlertitan]

i only wish we could describe a Mahler symphony with words!

[Renfield]

i only wish we could describe a Mahler symphony with words!

Well, I'd be tempted to suggest "f****** awesome!", but yes, it is indeed very hard.

[greg]

i only wish we could describe a Mahler symphony with words!

how about a comparison?
to me, better than ANYTHING.
period, no exceptions, and i won't take back my words. 

[hornteacher]

At a performance of Mahler's Seventh:
            "Gustav Mahler? Oh, one of those guys Alma was married to other than Werfel."

So Gustav could point to his wife and say there was his Alma Mahler.   

[M forever]

I was sitting next to her, and we had both been to both concerts. Not exactly "overheard", but I wasn't doing the talking.

Is that your girlfriend?

[Solitary Wanderer]

Went to a chamber music concert last year and about 1min into Mozarts 'Dissonance' String Quartet the women sitting in front of me turned to her husband and said 'this isn't Mozart!'.

Leaving the concert hall earlier this year after hearing Mahlers 4th symphony, an old lady walking in front of me turned to her female friend and said 'well that was an ordeal!'

[Bonehelm]

a 14/15 year old teenage girl at a LvB 5th concert: I thought they usually knock twice in a row and wait for the "who's there?"...

[mahlertitan]

a 14/15 year old teenage girl at a LvB 5th concert: I thought they usually knock twice in a row and wait for the "who's there?"...

Fate
fate who?

[Renfield]

Is that your girlfriend?

Not really. But she was one of those people who attend two or three concerts a year, for 50 years, and don't really care for understanding the music... And seeing as I was *gasp* reading the program, she decided I was an experienced music-listener *cough cough* and proceeded to unleash her miriad observations about those two concerts upon me.

Still, it was fun enough for the intermission, since I'm not one of those people who get off their seats the moment the music stops and come back right before it resumes - not my style, that... -_-

As far funny concert behaviour goes, but not exactly a "quote", I remember from that same Mahler 6 the elderly lady was commenting on a couple in front of me, early twenties, obviously semi-clueless about Mahler... And the guy (who was sitting directly in front of me) could not find peace from his girlfriend startling whenever anything sudden happened, and making sure to point out - yes, as in "poke her finger to the direction of, very obviously" - the percussionists before they played. Mildly entertaining, all in all...

But I don't really get funny quotes from concerts... I get people with broken limbs turning up late and all-bandaged-up for the concert, I get schoolchildren hollering at their favourite conductor, I get a guy audibly saying "look at him play!" in the middle of a piano recital, but not much in the way of really funny quotes, alas.

[KevinP]

Phlegm, though it wasn't as funny at the time.

[greg]

it's not really funny, but i did hear this anciently old lady after Mahler 5 saying "now that was Mahler 6, right?" and someone corrected her.
but I couldn't help thinking if it was 6, she might not've lived to see the end after the hammer blows and all...

[knight66]

I was stopped coming out of a rehearsal for some Beethoven and an old woman asked what was on. I explained and she said...'Oh, did he write any good tunes then?'

Opening of third act of Rosenkavalier the man beside me said....'I thought this guy was supposed to be the waltz king, there has hardly been a waltz all night...bloody awful.'

On the way out from Peter Grimes, I heard one woman say to another, 'Exactly the same happened to a friend of mine.' I assume she was not talking about the opera, but it was a nice moment.

Mike

[Novi]

Opening of third act of Rosenkavalier the man beside me said....'I thought this guy was supposed to be the waltz king, there has hardly been a waltz all night...bloody awful.'

At least he got the odd waltz or two in Rosenkavalier. Imagine if he went to Elektra expecting the Blue Danube...

[Larry Rinkel]

Not funny at the time, but true:

I turned around during a concert to ask the people behind me to stop talking.

Reply: "Just shut up and mind your own business. We weren't talking to you."