# Worst performances



## Retrograde Inversion (Nov 27, 2016)

What are the worst live performances you've ever witnessed? Entertain us with your tales of disaster!


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

Well I have seen some perfs by local orchestras - cats music standard - and I have been to a laughably woeful and embarrasing perf of a local church choir singing Mozart's requiem - I had to keep my head down and creep out when I had the chance.

But for professional - I saw a perf of Zauberflote in Budapest in the early 90s at the Erkel theatre - everyone was ok but the queen of the night's voice cracked and broke in the high registers in the famous bits - the audience hissed throughout. Probably the end of her career.

Music festivals can be funny - there was a boy of about 16 who decided to play one of beethoven's big sonatas - the way he thrashed his way through was something to behold - there was so much sweat pouring off him he had to stop several times to wipe his brow with his sleeve. At the adjudication the judge (Nick Daniels oboist) looked at him and said - you must feel wretched after that.
Quite.

One last story - 6 years ago Steven Hough played Chopin superbly at a private school concert where he was booked to give a masterclass. The hall was full - and in the middle of the last mvt of the sonata a lady suddenly got up with her hand covering one mouth and began a rapid walk to the exit - before she could get out - vomit spurted out from between her fingers and made a right mess on the floor. What a smell that was. After Hough finished and took his applause - he went off and I watched in horror as he stepped directly into the path of the vomit - he nearly slipped over in it but managed to keep upright. I understand he wrote in his blog the next day with some amusing comments.


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## Judith (Nov 11, 2015)

Saw Ashley Wass perform Liszt piano concerto for one of our local orchestras. Sounded as though he was rushing it and looked like he couldn't get away from the piano fast enough!


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## pcnog11 (Nov 14, 2016)

It happened to Yundi Li. Please read the following link:

http://slippedisc.com/2015/11/breaki...opin-concerto/

It is embarrassing.


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## Retrograde Inversion (Nov 27, 2016)

pcnog11 said:


> It happened to Yundi Li. Please read the following link:
> 
> http://slippedisc.com/2015/11/breaki...opin-concerto/
> 
> It is embarrassing.


Page not found.


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## Gordontrek (Jun 22, 2012)

I've got a few:
My local symphony is a superb orchestra, but one particular night they were just off. They were playing Copland's El Salon Mexico, and began a section after a pause in the piece. Something wasn't right- then the conductor STOPPED, and then repeated the section. I've never seen that happen to this orchestra before, and neither had the musicians I spoke with later. 
I don't recall if this was the same performance, but in the middle of a symphony (can't remember which), the principal oboe got up and slowly walked out. In the middle of the performance! He came back a few minutes later. To this day I have no idea what he went out for, but it was embarrassing. 
I was performing in an orchestra for Handel's Messiah a few years ago. It was a good production. But the alto soloist _could not sing._ I don't know if it was just her nerves, but the poor lady had zero tone, zero sense of pitch, and couldn't sustain a note. I can still hear her rendition of "O Thou That Tellest Good Tidings to Zion" in my nightmares. 
I attended a live performance of Dvorak 8 by the local symphony that was quite underwhelming. The tempi kept slowing down, and the concertmaster absolutely butchered the solo in the second movement. It was very uncharacteristic. They later performed Mahler 5, and it was an absolutely stellar performance. Go figure. 
Back in high school I performed with a band that was decent at best; I just wanted some experience outside of an orchestra. The director was retiring, and for her last program insisted on performing Donald Hunsberger's magnificent transcription of Festive Overture. We had maybe four people in the group capable of playing it. That's all I'm going to say.


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## pcnog11 (Nov 14, 2016)

Retrograde Inversion said:


> Page not found.


Try this one:

http://slippedisc.com/2015/11/breaking-yundi-crashes-out-of-chopin-concerto/

or

http://www.asianews.network/content...lubs-seoul-performance-angers-local-fans-2982

Poor attitude is worse than poor performance.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

I think they all happened in our household.


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## pcnog11 (Nov 14, 2016)

Retrograde Inversion said:


> What are the worst live performances you've ever witnessed? Entertain us with your tales of disaster!


My grade 5 piano exam.....I was sick that day!


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## Richard8655 (Feb 19, 2016)

A CSO performance of Mahler #5 under Barenboim at their outdoor park venue a few years ago. It was an unbearably hot and humid August night. Barenboim and orchestra members held white hand kerchiefs constantly wiping persperation. The wind and brass sections were under duress in the heat. I never heard so many clarinet squeals and trumpet squeaks in my life. 

I don't blame them at all in that tropical heat. Everyone was drenched in sweat. But somehow it was still enjoyable.


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## Krummhorn (Feb 18, 2007)

pcnog11 said:


> Try this one:
> 
> http://slippedisc.com/2015/11/breaking-yundi-crashes-out-of-chopin-concerto/


Error message: _This video is no longer available sue to a copyright claim by Syney Symphony Orchestra_


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

pcnog11 said:


> My grade 5 piano exam.....I was sick that day!


But you did recovered well I see.


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## Retrograde Inversion (Nov 27, 2016)

Gordontrek said:


> I was performing in an orchestra for Handel's Messiah a few years ago. It was a good production. But the alto soloist _could not sing._ I don't know if it was just her nerves, but the poor lady had zero tone, zero sense of pitch, and couldn't sustain a note. I can still hear her rendition of "O Thou That Tellest Good Tidings to Zion" in my nightmares.


I had a similar _Messiah_ experience once. It was a singalong, with budget soloists. The tenor was at least half a tone flat (I think he eventually got the idea and went into arts admin instead).

Then there was the horn student who ...inadvisedly... ventured one of the Mozart concertos on natural horn. That has to be just about the hardest instrument of all to play with any control, and the result was very unfortunate and very painful for both performer and audience. I guess those are the kind of learning experiences we all need.

As for myself, I'm no performer, except for some choral experience some years ago. But a couple of occasions when my own music was performed (fortunately in workshops, rather than in public) have stuck in my memory. The first was a pretty awful choral piece for which I put together a one voice per part performance, with myself taking the bass. We had just one rehearsal, but the singers (myself included) were struggling to find the pitches in my atonal counterpoint so much that we had to resort to sitting around a piano playing the parts as we sung, which doubtless looked as silly as it sounded.

The other, a few years later, was a string quartet in which the first movement culminates in a rather wild fugue, with frantic activity for several pages. At the climax, the first violinist, an excellent performer of solo calibre, lost control of her bow, which went spinning across the room. Fortunately no-one was hurt, and the bow suffered no damage.


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## Animal the Drummer (Nov 14, 2015)

Freddy Kempf gave quite the most unpleasant performance of the "Emperor" I've ever had the misfortune to hear at a concert some years ago. He managed to mishit the top B flat which ends the piano's first flourish and proceeded to spiv his way through a flashy, superficial performance of the whole piece which trivialised it utterly. I sat firmly on my hands through the storm of applause which I was afraid might greet the end of the last movement (and duly did). Ugh.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Something always fouls up with outdoor concerts...it's almost a guarantee....heat, cold, wind, weather, bugs - it's always something. I remember a July 4th program - it was 102 degrees, humid as hell, and the June bugs were out, en masse, attracted by the big spotlights and stage lights...musicians were getting bombed, and dinged by these hard-shelled, but incredibly clumsy, klutzy aerial marauders....I got hit in the eye with one. that was an ordeal, believe me...

Years ago, I was performing, and contracting a whole series of summer Pops gigs with a professional orchestra hired for this series - very fine musicians, Boston, Providence, SE MA performers...These concerts all took place in the SE Massachusetts.
One of the works featured was Offenbach's '"Orpheus in His Underwear"....er...I mean "Orpheus in the Underworld" :lol:
about midway thru, there is a pause, then a big clarinet cadenza...clarinetist has it all to his/herself....
Well, it seemed that every time we came to that spot, right at the clarinet cadenza - some sonic disaster would occur - EVERY TIME!! - a squad of motorcycles came ripping by; police, ambulance sirens screaming past; once a helicopter buzzed right over us; we were playing on the state pier, for a big city festival - at the right spot - a big cruise ship let blast its steam whistle [drowned out everything] as it departed from the dock!! [The muses were not pleased - the ship went out of the harbor, into the fog, and promptly collided with a fishing boat ]. Always at the clarinet cadenza - she'd take a breath to start - then all sonic hell would break loose...
finally, last concert - we're in the middle of a big park, nowhere near the street, no ships anywhere near, no motorcycles, no ambulances within range, Ahh...we finally might make it - NOPE!! the concert had started at 5:30....unknown to us, there was a fire horn/whistle right near the concert site - you guessed it - as we reached the ill-fated clarinet cadenza spot - promptly at 6PM - the whistle blasted forth on its daily afternoon sounding - 6 long blasts of acoustical devastation!! :devil::lol:
I guess that cadenza just wasn't meant to be...

PS - I could go on forever about screwed up, flubbed up performances - It's all part of the business we're in...


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## Vinyl (Jan 22, 2014)

I attended a performance of the Goldberg Variations once, and for some reason I hadn't realized that it was being played on an accordion. 
She certainly did her best, but nope. Not my taste.


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## SuperTonic (Jun 3, 2010)

I would say the worst professional concert I've seen was when the local symphony, the Fort Worth Symphony, did the Shostakovitch Cello Concerto No. 1. The orchestra was fine, but the soloist was a disaster (I can't recall his name now, this was several years ago and he's not a well known cellist). I knew something wasn't right before the piece even started, when they brought out a music stand for the soloist. He hadn't even bothered to memorize the piece. It was pretty clear just a few seconds into the piece that he didn't know it at all. It was almost like he was sight reading. Lots of wrong notes and he even skipped over some of the harder parts, he just didn't play anything. The cadenza, which makes up the entire third movement of the piece, was excruciating to watch.
I am a cellist and I played this piece in college, so I know it very well. It is one of my favorite cello concertos and I bought tickets to that concert just to hear that piece, so I was pretty upset. I've never walked out in the middle of a performance before but I almost did that night.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

The worst concert I've ever seen.... I was in. >_<

Few years ago I was asked to be in a gig for a new cantata composed by a Chinese composer and musician. And he conducted the work.... and it was the worst experience with a conductor ever. He could _not _stay on track. His own excitement for the music made him do mistakes over and over again to the point I truly felt ashamed for the audience, who paid big money to watch it. Train crash one after another, but at least the orchestra was smart enough to not let him get too much in the way and was otherwise able to keep together. It became an issue of artistic integrity to me. I will _not _be that kind of musician and demand people pay like $50 a ticket, as this concert was I think. I was truly ashamed to be a part of that...


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## Retrograde Inversion (Nov 27, 2016)

SuperTonic said:


> I would say the worst professional concert I've seen was when the local symphony, the Fort Worth Symphony, did the Shostakovitch Cello Concerto No. 1. The orchestra was fine, but the soloist was a disaster (I can't recall his name now, this was several years ago and he's not a well known cellist). I knew something wasn't right before the piece even started, when they brought out a music stand for the soloist. He hadn't even bothered to memorize the piece. It was pretty clear just a few seconds into the piece that he didn't know it at all. It was almost like he was sight reading. Lots of wrong notes and he even skipped over some of the harder parts, he just didn't play anything. The cadenza, which makes up the entire third movement of the piece, was excruciating to watch.
> I am a cellist and I played this piece in college, so I know it very well. It is one of my favorite cello concertos and I bought tickets to that concert just to hear that piece, so I was pretty upset. I've never walked out in the middle of a performance before but I almost did that night.


Actually, that reminds me of a performance of the Berg Violin Concerto I attended years ago. It wasn't so much the performance itself that was awful (it could best be described as mediocre and somewhat under-rehearsed). It was what happened at the end: The conductor turned round and basically apologized for playing the work, after which they played Sarasate's lollipop _Zigeunerweisen_.


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## pcnog11 (Nov 14, 2016)

Krummhorn said:


> Error message: _This video is no longer available sue to a copyright claim by Syney Symphony Orchestra_


Unfortunately, the video is not available. Did you read the story?


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

SuperTonic said:


> I would say the worst professional concert I've seen was when the local symphony, the Fort Worth Symphony, did the Shostakovitch Cello Concerto No. 1. The orchestra was fine, but the soloist was a disaster (I can't recall his name now, this was several years ago and he's not a well known cellist). I knew something wasn't right before the piece even started, when they brought out a music stand for the soloist. He hadn't even bothered to memorize the piece. It was pretty clear just a few seconds into the piece that he didn't know it at all. It was almost like he was sight reading. Lots of wrong notes and he even skipped over some of the harder parts, he just didn't play anything. The cadenza, which makes up the entire third movement of the piece, was excruciating to watch.
> I am a cellist and I played this piece in college, so I know it very well. It is one of my favorite cello concertos and I bought tickets to that concert just to hear that piece, so I was pretty upset. I've never walked out in the middle of a performance before but I almost did that night.


Could it be possible he was substituting for an original player that bowed out maybe because of illness? But if they made no mention of that, I don't know. Sometimes orchestras might be too ashamed to admit their soloist quit the gig and just try to scramble to get an alternative player. Still it's a pretty awful experience for everyone.


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## Nevum (Nov 28, 2013)

Try this one


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## Guest (Jan 7, 2017)

Vinyl said:


> I attended a performance of the Goldberg Variations once, and for some reason I hadn't realized that it was being played on an accordion.
> She certainly did her best, but nope. Not my taste.


At what point in the performance did it dawn on you that she was playing an accordion?


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

The opposite of worse:
Brazilian pianist, Eliane Rodrigues, LITERALLY taking the performance below the stage!


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

Vinyl said:


> I attended a performance of the Goldberg Variations once, and for some reason I hadn't realized that it was being played on an accordion.
> She certainly did her best, but nope. Not my taste.


I dont think that qualifies for this thread

it's not the musician's fault if you dont read the announcement before buying a ticket.


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## cimirro (Sep 6, 2016)

Pugg said:


> The opposite of worse:
> Brazilian pianist, Eliane Rodrigues, LITERALLY taking the performance below the stage!


Strange, I never meet a professional concert pianist who will not try the piano at least 1 hour before the concert...


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

cimirro said:


> Strange, I never meet a professional concert pianist who will not try the piano at least 1 hour before the concert...


She did, at rehearsal everything was alright.


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## cimirro (Sep 6, 2016)

Pugg said:


> She did, at rehearsal everything was alright.


I still believe it is a "marketing" of/on her, because this kind of problem in a piano do not happen by itself with a piano while no one is playing it.
and I'm thinking about the piano technician too - the work of the piano technician (who is also the tuner) is checking if everything is going well with the instrument before every concert - unless this place have no piano technician - which would be bad...
Anyway, if the piano is not good for playing it is ok to change the piano. But the way she acts is opportunistic - she is disturbing the work of the ones who need removing the piano - the lid is open because she is playing... we must never move pianos with opened lid.
I do not see any impressive thing in her act... more lack of responsibility than professionalism
But ok, we live in a world where the image is the most important...


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## Rach Man (Aug 2, 2016)

Pugg said:


> The opposite of worse:
> Brazilian pianist, Eliane Rodrigues, LITERALLY taking the performance below the stage!


I thought she was fantastic. I would have loved to have been at the concert!


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## Vinyl (Jan 22, 2014)

Kontrapunctus said:


> At what point in the performance did it dawn on you that she was playing an accordion?


The piano was covered and off to stage left, so I was confused up to the point where she entered the stage wearing a red dress and a huge accordion.


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## Vinyl (Jan 22, 2014)

stomanek said:


> I dont think that qualifies for this thread
> 
> it's not the musician's fault if you dont read the announcement before buying a ticket.


Fair enough, if the posters had mentioned it, but they just said GV and her name. Tickets were at the door, generic lottery number type. I was innocent, I tell you!

edit: 
I believe it was some sort of exam, and they probably didn't expect (and didn't get more than one) more than close family and friends attending. 
In fact, in one sense it doesn't belong even with accordion, because she played it quite well. I heard threads and details I have never heard, and it wasn't boring. 
However, no matter how fast you are, there's a pause when you reverse the bellows, and during those fast runs in a couple of the variations that was unattractive enough for me to include it.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

cimirro said:


> I still believe it is a "marketing" of/on her, because this kind of problem in a piano do not happen by itself with a piano while no one is playing it.
> and I'm thinking about the piano technician too - the work of the piano technician (who is also the tuner) is checking if everything is going well with the instrument before every concert - unless this place have no piano technician - which would be bad...
> Anyway, if the piano is not good for playing it is ok to change the piano. But the way she acts is opportunistic - she is disturbing the work of the ones who need removing the piano - the lid is open because she is playing... we must never move pianos with opened lid.
> I do not see any impressive thing in her act... more lack of responsibility than professionalism
> But ok, we live in a world where the image is the most important...


She swears ( on national T.V ) it's not.


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## cimirro (Sep 6, 2016)

Pugg said:


> She swears ( on national T.V ) it's not.


Well, in this case I'm afraid I have been too bad and nasty... if it is on TV then it is true :lol:


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

cimirro said:


> Well, in this case I'm afraid I have been too bad and nasty... if it is on TV then it is true :lol:


You have to trust people sometime in life.


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## Francis Poulenc (Nov 6, 2016)

Gergiev conducting Mahler 3.


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## cimirro (Sep 6, 2016)

Pugg said:


> You have to trust people sometime in life.


I do trust in some people, but you can be sure they do not work in TV, magazines, newspapers, churches or in politics...


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## Judith (Nov 11, 2015)

Francis Poulenc said:


> Gergiev conducting Mahler 3.


Don't know if its me but when I have watched Gergiev on You Tube, he appears very untidy and looks unshaven!


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## pcnog11 (Nov 14, 2016)

Pugg said:


> The opposite of worse:
> Brazilian pianist, Eliane Rodrigues, LITERALLY taking the performance below the stage!


In the classical world, have often do people account for equipment failure? Does a concert violinist have a backup violin? What about a cello or piano in this case?

Beethoven broke some strings when he played on a fortepiano. What about model instruments? They should be better constructed. If so, what about a Strad?


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## TooManyNotes (Jan 4, 2017)

Didn't witness this, but this is pretty awful (and by awful I mean absolutely hilarious)

http://www.brendankinsella.com/Rachmaninoff.mp3


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## jdec (Mar 23, 2013)

The "Florence Foster Jenkins" of this century? :lol:


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## cimirro (Sep 6, 2016)

TooManyNotes said:


> Didn't witness this, but this is pretty awful (and by awful I mean absolutely hilarious)
> 
> http://www.brendankinsella.com/Rachmaninoff.mp3


... what?


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## perempe (Feb 27, 2014)

Miskolc SO performed Saint-Saëns' Symphony no. 3 with a chamber organ a couple years ago. Not the fault of the musicians.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

jdec said:


> The "Florence Foster Jenkins" of this century? :lol:


gawd...that is excruciating....


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

pcnog11 said:


> In the classical world, have often do people account for equipment failure? Does a concert violinist have a backup violin? What about a cello or piano in this case?
> 
> Beethoven broke some strings when he played on a fortepiano. What about model instruments? They should be better constructed. If so, what about a Strad?


Back in January Anne-Sophie Mutter broke a string on her strad violin while performing with the VPO, and just wiggled it out of her bow's way and played until the end of the piece on the other ones. Then she tore the dangling string away during the applause and played on the remaining strings until it was her time to leave the stage.


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## Heliogabo (Dec 29, 2014)

In the late 1990s the Arditti string quartet gave a recital in Mexico City. The moment they played Beethoven’s grand fugue, I saw the cellist slip his instrument for a moment, lose the piece, and all started to sound horrible. They had to stop and restart from a certain compass.
In the end they apologized to the public, but the damage was done. It was totally anticlimatic, at least they would have play it again completely... 
And what a hell of a complicated piece that fugue is for players, though...


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## SearsPoncho (Sep 23, 2020)

I attended a local concert of a lady playing Bach's Goldberg Variations at some small hall. She was a pianist and an alleged Bach scholar from NYC. She got through about 1/4 of the piece and stopped. She kept trying to get through a certain variation, but she would always stop at the same point. Memory lapse. She walked offstage, dragged a bag to the piano, rifled through a bunch of papers, and pulled out the score. She proceeded to SIGHT READ the rest of Bach's Goldberg Variations. It was painful to watch and hear. There was plenty of stopping, starting, and repeating sections. Suffice it to say, it was no longer about musicianship; it was about getting to the end and survival.:lol: When the concert ended, she walked into what remained of the small audience and proceeded to mingle as if nothing unusual had just happened. She walked up to us, looked right at me, and asked, "Which was your favorite variation?" Although I felt horrible, I couldn't really think of a decent lie, so I said, "The Aria." I genuinely felt bad for her because I know Bach is very hard to memorize.


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## AeolianStrains (Apr 4, 2018)

I've seen some pretty awful amateur stuff, but as far as professional concerts go, I was very disappointed in Mozart's Zauberflote in Prague. This is what the second or third city that the opera was performed, but it was pretty atrocious. They had this Mozartian figure narrating through sections. It was embarrassing.


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