The Elegant Symphony

I went to a symphony concert tonight, and I have to
admit I was frightened. Not frightened as in Linda Blair's
head spinning around and around before that became something
that happens every day in your living room. More like
frightened as in, "Has civilization really descended to
THIS?"

If the symphony is anything, the symphony is elegant.
You check reality with your coat, and don't even consider
bringing your cellular or your beeper. If either went off
during the performance, you would be immediately sacrificed
to the muses, and the concert would continue in spite of the
interruption. But I digress.
Tonight, the program was filled with movements from
three Mozart symphonies and a short series of classical
guitar. During the adagio movement of the third Mozart
selection, the melee began.
The violins apparently came to a page turn in their
music, so the second violinist reached across the music stand
he shared with the first violinist to turn the page. As he
moved the loose page from the right to the left, the paper
slipped from his fingers. This did not alter the flow of the
music played by the first violinist because the page that fell
had already been finished, and the page now exposed was the
next in order.

This would have been no problem had it stopped there,
but it didn't.

The first violinist was sitting high in his seat with
his feet perched lightly below and somewhat underneath it.
The page of music that fell from the music stand landed under
the first violinist's right toes as he lifted them in time to
the music. As he put the toes of his right foot back down, the
paper between his shoe and the floor of the stage caused his
foot to slip backward.
The sudden movement of his foot effected his balance,
and he lurched forward quickly and dropped to a kneeling
position.
This change in position happened suddenly, and with a
great deal of force, but this concertmaster was a seasoned
performer, and he continued to play throughout. But this
wasn't the end. The page of music that started the trouble
was not finished.

When the first violinist dropped off of his chair
onto his knees, the music that was under his toes was
propelled out from behind him and into the face of an
unsuspecting violinist in the second row. The leap of the
first violinist and the music in his face took the man in the
second row quite by surprise, and he flinched to the left.
Of course, as one might suspect, this made him lose his
balance, causing both he and his chair to fall to the side.
The side he fell to happened to be where the woodwinds
were sitting. Amazingly, they continued to play and were
quite unaffected. It's not finished though.

The violinist from the second row who had fallen
moved into a sitting position, there on the floor beside the
woodwinds, in an attempt to follow the example of the first
violinist and continue playing. This was a noble gesture, but
as he moved, his foot bumped a glass of water sitting beside a
music stand in the woodwind section. The resulting water on
the stage floor, I am happy to say, left the woodwinds
completely unscathed, which is better than can be said for
the incredibly animated percussionist.

Normally, it is very interesting to watch the spry
movements of the percussionist from one timpani to the other.
This, however, was his undoing tonight. Of course, he slipped
on the water and headed for the floor. In a futile attempt to
grab for something stable, he put his hands onto the timpani,
which proved to be of little help.

The timpani went over onto one side, then rolled away
from the fallen percussionist and through the brass section.
The run-away drum prompted the brass players to come to their
feet and scatter. The quick movements of the entire brass
section startled one of the contrabass players. This
contrabass player looked toward the confusion and away from
the next musician in his own section. In the diversion, he
moved his bow hand in such a way as to inadvertently perform
exploratory surgery on the ear of the next contrabass player,
who must have experienced severe pain. The pain coaxed the
contrabass player to say something that the chelists in front
of him apparently took for "fightin' words."
By the time the movement was finished, several
musicians were seated on the floor, several others were
standing, a few were wet, a few were injured, and a fist-fight
was in progress.

The conductor successfully directed a majority of the
instruments to the end of the movement, and though the
audience was not expected to applaud until the next movement
was finished, there was a standing ovation.

The rest of the Mozart selection and the classical
guitar portion of the concert were both abandoned, I will
assume due to nervous trauma on the part of the conductor.

When the elegant audience left the concert hall, no one spoke
audibly about the goings on, but I can imagine that others
like myself were scarred.