The latest gimmickry at London’s South Bank Centre is arousing audience discontent. The symphonies affected were by Shostakovich and Mahler. Here’s a letter sent by one unhappy patron to those complicit and responsible. Let us know if you were there and feel the same way.
Twice in the last couple of years I’ve attended a performance of a Shostakovich symphony by the RPO and Vasily Petrenko – one at the Proms, the other at the South Bank, I think it was. On each occasion I thought it one of the best performance of the piece I’d heard (and I’ve been a Shostakovich junkie for more than half a century). So I was keeping an eye out for the next time there was an RPO/Petrenko Shostakovich symphony anywhere within reach.
Hence, seeing a listing for the Leningrad at the South Bank this weekend, a friend got us tickets and we eagerly awaited the afternoon concert.
Frankly, I wish we hadn’t wasted our money. Since there were no choir seats available – where we usually sit, since we don’t have much money – we spent more than we could easily afford for tickets in the main
auditorium; but assumed it would be worthwhile, given our expectations.
However,it was completely impossible to concentrate on the music because of the vast screens in front of us, pumping out incomprehensible pictures. The Festival Hall has a standard announcement before orchestral performances,asking people to ensure their phones are turned off because the light can disturb other members of the audience; so what effect are moving and flashing images on screens thousands of times the size of a mobile phone going to have? What were you thinking? The experience was excruciating.
The performance might indeed have been a wonderful one – or not – but I have no idea. As with many people, I go to concerts of serious music not just to hear but to _listen_; I expect to be able to concentrate on the music, and in return for the effort I am often rewarded with a profound experience (as with the previous RPO/Petrenko Shostakovich performances I was at); but how could anyone concentrate on the music with all that visual intrusion?
I know that Shostakovich was well-known for writing music for films; but that doesn’t mean it works the other way round! His music stands or falls in its own right. By the nature of the artform, it doesn’t need “illustrating”, or whatever the films shown were supposed to be doing.
Please don’t do this again – at least not unless you warn people very clearly that they’re going to a film show with music attached, rather than to a concert.
Albert Beale
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