Rachelle's Reading List: Thursday, January 12th, 2012

The phone call that stopped the New York Phiharmonic. [WSJ] This is the worst, the very very worst case of a phone shutting down a performance (of any kind) that I've eer heard. How incredibly embarrassing!

The final movement of Mahler's Ninth Symphony is a slow rumination on mortality, with quiet sections played by strings alone. During the New York Philharmonic's performance Tuesday night, it was interrupted by an iPhone. The jarring ringtone—the device's "Marimba" sound, which simulates the mallet instrument—intruded in the middle of the movement, emanating from the first row at Avery Fisher Hall. As the offending noise continued in a loop, Mr. Gilbert turned in its direction and pointedly asked that the phone be turned off. The audience let out a collective gasp. The ringtone—believed to be an alarm—played on. The audience wasn't pleased. A Wall Street Journal reporter seated in the 19th row heard jeers hurled from the balconies. One man screamed: "Enough!" Another yelled: "Throw him out!" The audience clapped and hollered in agreement—and still the tone continued to sound amid the din. The Philharmonic, like many performing arts groups, plays an announcement at the beginning of concerts and at the end of each intermission asking the audience members to turn off their cellphones. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal Wednesday, Mr. Gilbert said the ring tone yanked him out of a trance-like state during the symphony's "most intense, most sublime, most emotional place." "It was kind of shocking because you get to a very faraway place emotionally and spiritually," he said.