A German orchestra has dropped a composition from its programme after its members claimed the music was so loud that it gave them ear problems and headaches.
The Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra said it had little choice but to drop the world premiere of Swedish-Israeli composer Dror Feiler’s Halat Hisar (State of Siege) from a concert because it was ”adverse to the health” of its musicians.
Members of the 100-strong orchestra said they could only contemplate playing the piece wearing headphones, after several suffered buzzing in the ears for hours after rehearsals. The 20-minute composition starts with the rattle of machine-gun fire and gets louder.
”I had to protect the orchestra,” its manager, Trygve Nordwall, said. ”I can’t just say we’ll play it anyway, for it to then cause health problems. The piece starts with machine-gun shots … and that’s the quietest part of it.”
Nordwall was guided by new European Union rules that forbid more than 85 decibels in the workplace. He said readings were taken during rehearsals and even when toned down, Halat Hisar measured about 130 decibels, equivalent to hearing a jet aircraft taking off.
Feiler (56) said that his work was ”no louder than anything by Shostakovich or Wagner”. He told the Munich Abendzeitung that he was willing to compromise but ”there was no will there”.
Nordwall said the musicians had considered wearing headphones but would not have been able to hear each other. The composer also rejected the idea, he said.
Critics have weighed in, saying that if taken literally, the rules would effectively mean a ban on louder pieces by composers including Strauss and Wagner. — guardian.co.uk Â