coughing

[lmpianist]

Why do people start coughing during rests or in between movements?
Doesn't it make more sense to cough during the louder passages, so that the music drowns out your unwanted noise?
Many of these offenders are no strangers to classical music or proper concert etiquette.
Silence has a musical purpose!  It is not a void to be filled by the audience as it sees fit.
I don't get it.

Recently, this year, there was a very powerful dramatic moment during the opening night of Parsifal at the Bayreuth Festival, when after the final note of Act 3 was lifted, the entire theatre sat in complete and total silence for over 20 SECONDS before breaking into applause.  You could literally have been able to hear a pin drop.  Granted that's tradition in this case, but it was really something to behold.  We need more of this!

Sorry to rant.

[quantum]

I'd consider it audience music.  Someone just needs to notate a score part them.

[stevensk]

Smokers should be forbidden in visiting concerts 

[indianajo]

I'm glad you are all "normal" white Europeans.  One would expect Bayreuth to be mostly attended  by the healthiest of the "elite" race.  
My lungs produce slime continually. I share this trait with those of my grandparents who were most Native Am.  I cough even when I am not infected, with no excess temperature.  In the winter if the weather is dry, the volume of slime triples. Concerts are typically held in the winter, often in dry weather. Giving up coughing is not an option, except for holding my breath until I pass out.  
Wnen I am too bad to be silent for 10 minutes or so, I do not attend concerts, but when I am normal, I'm afraid the performer will have to put up with my imperfections.  I try to hold it until the music pauses.  It doesn't mean I am not listening.  
Actually my breathing problems were a main reason I didn't pursue music as a profession.  My breathing is inexorable, but not trouble free.  
I do have some traits that are superior to Europeans, but not those that Europeans value.  Streetlights are  redundant to me, I can read maps by starlight. There is not much benefit from that anymore, when the planet is being lit up electrically. 

[yewtree]

Coughing is the reason I  don't purchase live recordings of a  concert.
I have unwittingly purchased live recordings in the past only to hear some coughing in the background which totally ruins any listening pleasure.   Never again!   

 

[outin]

Coughing is almost always mental in healthy people. Even when having a flu the less you cough the less need you feel the need to. So one should relax and not give in to the temptation cough "a little bit" to remove the urge, because it just increases it. These people thinking coughing during breaks will make it less likely to cough in the wrong spot are quite misguided. Intead of trying to "clear" one's throat one should breath calmly and preferably through nose.

As an asthmatic I am an expert in preventing coughing, because it just makes the attacks worse. Allergic people should use asthma inhalers as a preventive when entering concerts where the air may be dry and people were parfumed products. I cannot remember ever coughing during a concert... and If I absolutely needed to I would do it in the loud spots, not when the other people are revering the last notes before the break...

[kalospiano]

well, sometimes people need to cough and it'd be really hard to keep it for the whole duration of a concert, I think we just have to accept that...

[Bob]

Inappropriate but it would still be funny if the movement ends, there's a flurry of coughs, and then a quiet fart is heard.

[macuaig]

People do need to cough. But they don't need to launch it out into the audience. A simple cough into the sleeve does wonders for noise, and hygiene.

[dcstudio]

I have been struck with a coughing fit in the middle of a concert.  You think it's tough being in the audience try being on stage. Can't just get up and leave....lol.

[ted]

Inappropriate but it would still be funny if the movement ends, there's a flurry of coughs, and then a quiet fart is heard.

As a teenager I attended a concert by Julius Katchen where somebody in the front seats let out a tremendous, resounding fart during the slow movement of the Waldstein. He must have heard it but he didn't let on. Imagine what would have happened had it been Keith Jarrett.

[j_tour]

Thank you so much for bringing this up.  I was listening not long ago to some Horowitz, Richter, and Gould live performances, and was just shocked and appalled at the noise the audience was making.

Yes, I know they're probably old and not in control of their bodies, general.

It is, in that respect, sort of just plain sad.

However, for those who -- and I'm sure there are more than a few -- lack self-restraint or concern for propriety, they're just entitled old farts, and I'm glad they're dead (on the recordings I heard, they certainly are).

ETA however, I've occasionally let loose some major (dry!) farts while practicing at home.  Yes, that is also upsetting to me, and I generally like childish humor.  I only shart while at the computer.  And for that I am thankful.

[minor9th]

I recently attended a recital by Lucas Debargue. At the end of "Le Gibet" from Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit, just as the last delicate note was fading, not only was there a barrage of coughing, but someone's cell phone rang! Disgusting.

[Bob]

And then one day this guy shows up in the audience and stares intently...

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4012932/Finland-Hasn-t-Got-Talent-Contestant-makes-fart-noises-hands-wins-country-s-entertainment-show.html