Im·mis·ci·bil·i·tyn.[Cf. F.
immiscibilité.]
Incapability of being mixed, or mingled. 
On a whim, I went yesterday to the final edition of
This Isn't For You, an event billed as the first 'classical club night'. And it's good. And I'd like to go again.
I couldn't help but remember, as I listened to the sounds of Bach and a weird and wonderful modern clarinet piece, the sensation of performing at the Wales Millennium centre, where the background noise was (consistently) at a high level, and there was no way of decreasing the volume, or shutting it out.
Same here. With a standing audience and an open bar, you're likely to come across a certain amount of clinking and shuffling and talking.
But weirdly, like in Wales, it didn't matter.
What's funny, is that even a piece that requires intense focus and lack of other distractions, such as the
Chaconne, isn't necessarily detracted from by background noise (consistent and unobtrusive noise that is! Drum & Bass and fire alarms don't fall into this category!)
In fact, I would argue that the presence of a level of noise other than the music being played actually
increases the focus of the music. Perverse, but...
When the ear first encounters the two separate layers of noise, it initially tries to mix them together, and take them in simultaneously. But noises so different as a solo instrument and clinking bar noise don't mix well. Like oil and water, the ear finds them immiscible.
We actually realise that, in order to make sense of everything, there's no way to enjoy the performance without filtering. At this point the ear begins to ignore the sounds that won't mix, and the brain focuses in on the music. As the old saying goes - people only hear what they want to hear!
I bring this up because so often the deconcerthallization (my word!) of classical music is criticized because it takes '
high art' (bleh - as if there's
low art) into a situation where there are too many distractions for people to focus on it. This blatantly isn't true. People are perfectly capable of focusing on something if it interests them enough. But there has to be a good reason. If the will is there, the ear will follow.
A great experiment, if you want to try this, is to listen to a very early recording with a ridiculous amount of crackling (try
these recordings by American violinst Maud Powell - free snippets available on the Amazon page) and see how soon the crackling appears to become less intrusive, once the music takes hold of your attention.
Which reminds me,
On An Overgrown Path pointed to
a treasure of free early 20th century MP3s including some amazing Menuhin, Casals, Kreisler recordings etc. - thoroughly worth a look. Especially if you speak Finnish ;)
