No phones were held aloft while Igor Levit - the Russian-born, German-based pianist - and two other top soloists, French violinist Renaud Capuçon and Austrian cellist Julia Hagen, played the complete Brahms piano trios last weekend. Despite Wigmore Hall’s strictures on the use of any electronic devices, every seat was sold. The capacity audience, of all ages, sat stock still, concentrating hard, throughout. At the end they whooped and cheered and some took pictures. These three trios, written across Brahms’s lifetime, have no programme, in the sense of stories attached. The listener’s ears and mind weave their own narrative.
Until a fortnight ago, any observation about the disruptive use of mobiles at concerts would have been dismissed as classical-elite fuss. After the announcement by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra’s chief executive that she was happy for phones to be used in concerts, a long thorny subject has become news. A week on, with complaints from all sides, some backtracking has taken place: dim the brightness, don’t use flash, performers’ views will be honoured, some concerts might be more appropriate than others.
