Riot in Kassel

Stewart, J. L. (1991). Ernst Krenek: The man and his music. Berkeley: University of California Press.

“As Krenek recalls, when the parts had been distributed, he told the players: ‘Now we are going to play a piece which you will not understand one bit.  Whoever thinks he has the theme please play very loud.’  The players dutifully did so, and the ragged performance had a colossal effect that produced an immediate uproar in the audience.  Programs and fists were waved above a tumult of shouting and shoving, and some people even came to blows…”

Clearly people going to symphonies these days are much too respectable for this kind of spectacle.

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