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Tony Watson
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« on: May 21, 2009, 12:16:12 am » |
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I thought that the general rule was that the more "challenging" items were in the first half of a concert so that the audience would stay around for the more popular piece after the interval.
I was abroad once and the second half of a concert was Brahms' First Symphony. I was tempted to leave at the interval, not because I don't like the work but because it seemed over-familiar to me. It is seeing the same, limited repertoire that puts me off going to some concerts. I am involved in a recital series (we've had John Lill, Tasmin Little, the King's Singers, the City of London Sinfonia and - a real find - the Royal Quartet from Poland, amongst others, this season) and yet we had to decline to book a certain pianist who had been doing very well in recent years because all he would offer was Beethoven sonatas and we had had so many of them our audience wanted something else, masterpieces though they are! I remember once though, after a string quartet had played Britten, a member of the audience coming up at the end and saying he would never come to another of our concerts after hearing such rubbish!
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