Classical music is nothing to cough at, it is often seen as a serious affair, with many dressing for the occasion. On Friday I went the Royal Festival Hall, London, to see Daniel Barenboim and the Berlin Staatskapelle. The performance of Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto was wonderfully sublime, whereas the critically successful performance of Schoenberg’s symphonic poem Pelleas und Melisande was not to my liking. But this post isn’t about reviewing the music, as I am no expert in this field and review by ‘professionals’ can be seen in related links below.

What I wanted to point out is something far more bizarre about classical concerts and that the constant urge of the audience to fight back that oh so imminent cough. No sooner do the violin strings screech and the conductors baton thrash the air, the scratch builds in the back of the throat, the music builds to a crescendo but it’s still not loud enough to cover the noise of the human cough.

This rarely happens in any other walk of life. I’ve never sat in a cinema with the same urge to cough along with so many others. How do I know that everyone wants to cough? the people around, either were, or had cough sweets on them. Other than that, as soon the music breaks or the interval comes, you will hear most if not all give a cough of relief. I have no idea why this is? but an interesting phenomenon nonetheless I feel.

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• Berlin Staatskapelle/Barenboim | Classical review (guardian.co.uk)
• Daniel Barenboim and Beethoven: Expect fireworks (telegraph.co.uk)
• Give Schoenberg’s work a chance (guardian.co.uk)