Mystery solved for Bernstein's BPO M9??

[Ben]

Certainly not confirmed, but someone who says he played horn for Bernstein's Mahler 9 with the BPO reveals the cause of the missing trombones in the 4th movement climax.  Apparently a gentleman, seated in the audience behind the orchestra (and trombones), collapsed of a heart attack and died during the performance.  He apparently collapsed just as this final climax was approaching.

I guess if you're going to go..might as well go during some of the best music ever written...

There are a few other Bernstein anecdotes, including an email from Henry Fogel about Bernstein's famous Shostakovich 7 with the Chicago Symphony.

http://ypsmusic.blogspot.com/2012/06/missing-trombones-in-bernsteins-famous.html

[barry guerrero]

That makes complete sense. If you listen to that passage very loudly with headphones on (I have noise cancelling ones), that's what it sounds as though happened. You hear a 'thud' or a 'bang', as though somebody fell over. Then you hear one or two, very concerned voices. It's incredible that the performance simply continued along.

I've always dismissed allegations that the BPO trombones didn't play there because they simply didn't like Bernstein. That explanation never made any sense to me. You can hear quite clearly that SOMETHING happened at that spot.

[akiralx]

It's incredible that the performance simply continued along.

I suppose it is.  I've attended two concerts where similar events occurred: during a performance of Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto with Helene Grimaud, with Salonen conducting the Philharmonia, a woman (also in the choir seats) collapsed at the end of the slow movement.  Salonen stopped the performance and asked if there was a doctor in the house.  The lady had fainted and was taken out to recover and the performance continued with the finale.

Late last year I attended the Sydney SO under Ashkenazy, and this time I was in the choir seats so could tell an elderly man had collapsed in his seat during Jian Wang's performance of the Dvorak Cello Concerto.  He was also carried out by ambulancemen but the performance did not stop as Ashkenazy was presumably oblivious (it was handled very discreetly).  Wang was facing the audience of course and so probably noticed it.