Diary of a Concert Goer, episode 1

(Locations and names in this text have been redacted to protect the guilty.)

I’m an avid concertgoer. I still madly love music, and I’m always on the lookout for new talent. A few days ago, I went to XXXX concert hall in XXXX to hear the XXXX string quartet. I’d heard great things about them but had never heard them in concert.

XXXX is a perfect chamber music hall: a couple hundred seats, clean sightlines, and great acoustics. The stage was set with four chairs and music stands. I noticed paper scores already in place, along with pedals on the floor. Then the lights dimmed—and the quartet walked onstage carrying iPads. They bowed and took their seats.

Personally, I wish everything were preset. It’s a small detail, but it matters—it’s our first encounter with the performers, and devil is in the details.

Then came what 99.987% of quartets seem to do: each player adjusted their chair and stand. Nerves, perhaps. Still, musicians receive almost no training in stage presence, and it shows. One of them then “checked his strings.” You might say that’s trivial. I disagree. Music is an art of sound and silence is a huge part of it. The moment you break that silence, you’ve begun. The first sound of a concert only happens once. There was nothing to fix, so this sonic intrusion only diluted the impact of the first sound of the Haydn quartet.

They played, they finished, they bowed… and then they walked offstage.

Another curious ritual of classical music. Did I buy a ticket to watch an empty stage? I understand the logistics—late seating and all that—but surely there are more thoughtful solutions.

A few minutes later, they returned. We applauded. One of them introduced the next piece—a premiere—and invited the composer to speak. The composer offered a few remarks, then sat down.

And what did this very fine string quartet do next?

They tuned.

Not a quick check—full, deliberate tuning. The kind that involves loosening strings to find resonance, the whole ritual. Which raises a question: why now?

They had just been backstage, with ample time to tune. Would their pitch have suffered in any meaningful way? Almost certainly not—and any minor adjustment could happen easily within the performance. So was this really necessary?

Classical concerts demand extraordinary discipline and formality from audiences: no talking, no movement, no phones, applause only at sanctioned moments, no entering or leaving mid-performance.

So why is it acceptable for performers to be so casual on stage?