feeling pained.

If you ever, ever attend a classical music concert, please do NOT:

1. Clap in between movements e.g. symphony, concerto etc.

2. Cough/fidget/clear your throat in between movements.

3. Cough/fidget/clear your throat immediately after the last note is sounded, or before the conductor has lowered his baton to his side. And it doesn't mean you can do it at any other time during the on-going performance.

4. Talk during the performance.

5. Answer/Make a call on your mobile.

6. Wear those annoying electronic watches that go beeeep at every hour.

I'll think of more tomorrow. Additions to these golden rules are more than welcome from all of you!

That being said, the Proms I attended last night was harrowing. I'm not sure if Yang'en and I can ever recover from the brutal experience of having our favourite Brahms's symphony desecrated by incompetent fools random minions. It was a downright massacre, all the more worse because I knew they could have done it much better, and heard very rare glimpses of its unmanifested potential - what it could have been. But seriously, which idiot on earth would build up climaxes and not follow it through? And he'd indulge in such exaggerated caesuras, and done in such bad taste! I came back home trembling in shock and a fair bit of rage, and had to soothe my traumatised ears, by listening to 4 straight playings of Szell's impassioned conducting of the very same symphony. It's the 4th, btw. Okay, elitist rant over.

Edit: Yang'en's review of the concert here --> clicky-clicky.