The disconcert orchestra

The concert has not ended, but the audience are walking out. They have been for some time, and the orchestra have noticed. There is panic amongst the players.

The violinists have started playing fast, loud tunes to win the audience back. The flautists have picked up some popular tunes of the day and are playing them to the audience regardless of what others are doing. The bassists are playing deeper, sobre tunes to sound respectable, while encouraging the cellists to join them. The bassoons are at the back playing Bee-Gees tunes (as they have been all night, if truth be told).

It is not working. Some have just laid their instruments down and are putting their coats on, the old orchestra leader amongst them. One was last seen slipping out to join another orchestra down the road. I think I see a harpist at the back who has silently put down her heavenly strings and is looking curiously at his drum, wondering if she can learn a new instrument before the end of the movement.

There are critics up in the gallery. Goodness knows what they are thinking, but I can hear what they are hearing and I can guess.

The audience are still leaving, and discussing what is on next door. The orchestra next door is full of Grade 2 students who hate each other almost as much as they despise large parts of the audience, but there is no alternative place to go. That drummer who slipped out isn’t finding an audience either. Audiences are like sheep.

As the concert draws to its close, the conductor may try to draw it out. The players though have stopped watching his baton. The flutes are getting louder and choosing more crowd-pleasing tunes, they hope, and the violins have started to join them. There is a row of oboes who have found out what pieces the orchestra next door are playing, and are doing the same, but with more vigour. (The lead cellist has been doing that for some time, unaware that the girl who turns the pages for him is working for that other orchestra. No wonder the other strings have been trying to drown him out all through this last movement.)

Still the audience are filing out. They paid a huge sum for their tickets, getting little in return: all the money went on a flock of ushers and their supervisors, all asleep at the back, and contracts for things never delivered.)

What now when the concert is over, and no applause comes? Will the audience tire of the new company the have gone to see? However, this is an audience for a nation which loves to gripe and grumble, and may enjoy the pleasure of have their eardrums assaulted with cacophony, and keep them playing for piece after piece. It is better to suffer to punish those who did not fulfil their promises, and to give patronage to those who never promised to be anything other that hopeless. If the players blame their own shortcomings on the previous orchestra, it is consistent: they comfort the audience by assuring them that the grating sound torturing their ears is all the fault of the audience in the upper circle.