Concert with a baby

About ten days ago, the section Pel forat del pany of La Vanguardia (better known by its ancestral title; La Mirilla) reported on an event that occurred at the Liceu and that has no relation to an operatic evening or a particularly memorable concert. According to the news text, a couple decided to attend the performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony accompanied by their baby. Alarmed by the (¡predictable!) cries of the newborn, the theater ushers asked the two cretins in question if they could leave the hall, but, invoking their right to have paid for their respective tickets, the Liceu officials only managed to get the lovebirds to go to a box where the sounds emitted by the little one were somewhat more muffled, so that the rest of the audience could continue with the temerity of listening to a music concert without the predictable spontaneity (sic) of a child.

The matter has many complexities for several reasons. First, La Vanguardia demonstrated the very scarce rigor and importance that the media in our city apply to information about so-called classical music, since the aforementioned concert did not feature Beethoven's famous Ninth, but rather Mahler's also well-known (and extra-programmed) Fifth. Journalistic rigor details aside, since the Generalitat approved Decree 112/2010 (on the regulation of public shows and recreational activities), article 53 stipulates that "persons under 16 years of age are prohibited from entering discotheques, party halls, dance halls, music bars, concert halls, concert cafes and theater cafes, except when live performances are held and they are accompanied by parents or guardians." The couple, therefore, was exercising a fully valid right.

But as we all know, due to the State where we have had to live, the law does not always go hand in hand with education or minimum criteria of sanity. Should children be able to attend a classical music concert? Of course! Many people have started the path of melomania at an early age and, surely, most of us who have dedicated ourselves to studying music can cite that singular concert that enlightened us for the first time and forever (in my case, a recital by the Scottish-Balearic guitarist David Russell at the Casal del Metge, so many years ago that I don't even dare to write the number). But we will all agree that one thing is to allow –or even promote!– a pre-teenager to attend a concert and another is to be so foolish as to take a poor baby there, who not only will not be able to retain any memory of this musical experience, but who, with all predictability, will end up destroying that of the rest of the audience.

In fact, the incident denotes two signs of our time. First, the rudeness of those who grant themselves the right to do as they please –including bothering others– simply for having shelled out a bit of cash. Secondly, the barbarity of going to a concert with a baby implies an absolute ignorance of the grace of a musical event like this. In fact, the city's music lovers are already sufficiently accustomed to the oceanic rudeness of Barcelona spectators, who hold the world record for coughs per minute and who are true specialists when it comes to opening a candy wrapper just when the orchestra softens, not to mention another usual intruder who is never missing from any orchestral evening; the mobile phone, an eternal uninvited guest in our halls and author of sonic destructions that should be sent directly to the European Court of Human Rights.

The barbarity of going to a concert with a baby implies an absolute ignorance of the grace of a musical event like this