A Phone Ring Breaks the Silence of Ravel's Piano Concerto (Movement II)
Creatrip Team
3 months ago
In a December concert of Maurice Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major, the writer describes the spellbinding calm of the Adagio assai (Movement II) performed by pianist Yunchan Lim, and how a sudden cellphone ring in the quiet hall shattered audience immersion. The piece, influenced by jazz and notable for its lyrical, monologue-like piano opening and delicate woodwind solos (flute, oboe, clarinet, English horn), builds a fragile atmosphere that demands silence. During the piano’s introspective 33-bar solo leading into a flute trill, a phone began to emit voices; the disruption escalated when the phone-holder ran out of the auditorium, drawing attention away from the performer and briefly halting the shared focus of audience and musicians. Despite several more small phone incidents that evening, the performers regained composure and completed the movement, whose final section features a poignant piano–English horn duet. The author calls for technological solutions (e.g., automatic “concert mode” via AI assistants) to prevent such disturbances in live performance venues and notes Ravel’s long-standing relationship with technological sounds (like trains) in his music.
