Noises off

So there we were, in the middle of the introduction to the first movement of the Beethoven 7th on Saturday night, when we heard a loud noise from backstage that sounded as if someone had dropped a kitchen sink from a very great height. I’ve played thousands of concerts, but never heard anything quite like that. Thunder, trains (at Ravinia), fireworks, thousands of Harleys – but no kitchen sinks.

No matter; we all kept going (although I did hear Edo mutter something). It’s amazing what concentration can achieve. And, by the end of the symphony, everyone appeared to have forgotten about it.

But then this orchestra finished a Rachmaninoff concerto, at a subscription concert early in my time here, when the lights went off 30 seconds from the end. I still don’t know how we pulled that off. Ignoring falling kitchen sinks is child’s play by comparison.

I wonder what it was that made such a resounding racket.