Audience coughing is thedreaded sound graffiti of the classical concert hall. In a packed cinema, or acrowded church, or during the performance of a play, audience coughing is not afactor. Yet somehow, in the studied quiet of a classical concert, human beingshave the urge to cough. Is it uncontrollable? I doubt it.
I do not believe it ispurely a matter of health. My theory is that some people cough as a nervouspsychological/physical reaction, a type of adult fidgeting. Going out on alimb, a subconscious inner process might be: You ask me to sit in silence, but I can't handle that pressure: Cough!Or: You want me to make this all aboutyou up on stage, but to register my discomfort at not being the center of anyattention: Cough!
Audience coughing ispsychologically contagious. Nearly every time one person begins coughing,others join in. Audience coughing does not happen in all halls, whichreinforces the thought that it is a controllable phenomenon after all. In thosehalls where the audience is enveloped by space and light as part of theperformance, coughing is minimal. But in the vast, anonymous dark of a theaterlike Uihlein Hall, audience members obviously feel their coughs could notpossibly matter. They are wrong. Everyone hears every cough as invasivepercussion. And no one is more aware of it than those onstage.
This all-Saint-Saënsprogram featured terrific performances of Dansemacabre and the aforementioned “Organ Symphony.” Simon Trpceski was thedazzling piano soloist in the Concerto No. 2. But de Waart's coughing speechwill be the lasting memory.
