Sleeping at concerts - we've all done it.
There was an amusing talk on BBC Radio 3, on why people fall asleep at concerts.
Most people at some time do and I must confess that I have'nt nodded off at a music concert though I did once at a play, which probably proves something.
Apparently an Italian ensemble is in Britian at the moment with 30 beds so that during the performance people can actually get into bed and if the music makes them sleepy the performers are happy equally if they want to stay awake and listen.
One correspondent who was an experienced musician said that every time he heard Shimonovsky's music it sent him to sleep but he wondered whether this was a bad thing. After all if the music makes people sleep and if sleep is a good thing I suppose music then fulfills a utilitarian function, the snoring would add to the orchestration. Apparently, musicians themselves can fall asleep which happened in London recently where someone in the first violins managed the difficult feat of falling asleep whilst keeping the bowing action of the violin in continuous motion. Everything was OK until the movement finished and a screeching sound was heard bizarrely coming from the orchestra and as someone jolted him back into consciousness, he then fell off his chair and the audience roared with laughter.
Can you imagine if it would happen with Toscanini, he would have had the poor man boiled in oil!.
Written compositonial music is meant to be listened to though the point was made that it was really only in Beethoven's time that a single minded fixation on listening was introduced, because in Mozart's time even sometimes the greatest music was a kind of 'background' to other social activities that were going on all around.
Beethoven would have nothing of this of course!!!!!. He demands attention, and no nodding off or getting into bed, 'as if we could or would want to'. The very idea.....
One final thought, was that the inbetween threshold state of sleep and waking is a very interesting artistic and neurological phenomenon and it can be an extremely creative state. The romantics called it 'reverie' and there is no doubt that great poems for instance have claimed to be written in this threshold condition.
Berlioz symphony fantastique claimed to have been written in just such a state.
[This message has been edited by Amalie (edited April 02, 2004).]
Most people at some time do and I must confess that I have'nt nodded off at a music concert though I did once at a play, which probably proves something.
Apparently an Italian ensemble is in Britian at the moment with 30 beds so that during the performance people can actually get into bed and if the music makes them sleepy the performers are happy equally if they want to stay awake and listen.
One correspondent who was an experienced musician said that every time he heard Shimonovsky's music it sent him to sleep but he wondered whether this was a bad thing. After all if the music makes people sleep and if sleep is a good thing I suppose music then fulfills a utilitarian function, the snoring would add to the orchestration. Apparently, musicians themselves can fall asleep which happened in London recently where someone in the first violins managed the difficult feat of falling asleep whilst keeping the bowing action of the violin in continuous motion. Everything was OK until the movement finished and a screeching sound was heard bizarrely coming from the orchestra and as someone jolted him back into consciousness, he then fell off his chair and the audience roared with laughter.
Can you imagine if it would happen with Toscanini, he would have had the poor man boiled in oil!.Written compositonial music is meant to be listened to though the point was made that it was really only in Beethoven's time that a single minded fixation on listening was introduced, because in Mozart's time even sometimes the greatest music was a kind of 'background' to other social activities that were going on all around.
Beethoven would have nothing of this of course!!!!!. He demands attention, and no nodding off or getting into bed, 'as if we could or would want to'. The very idea.....
One final thought, was that the inbetween threshold state of sleep and waking is a very interesting artistic and neurological phenomenon and it can be an extremely creative state. The romantics called it 'reverie' and there is no doubt that great poems for instance have claimed to be written in this threshold condition.
Berlioz symphony fantastique claimed to have been written in just such a state.
[This message has been edited by Amalie (edited April 02, 2004).]
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