This is one of the most chilling things I’ve ever heard, and I remember the day (I was 12).
[Nitpick: the article says the Beethoven was played “more slowly than is usual”. But as noted in the comments, “Erich Leinsdorf’s tempi in general tended to be on the faster side of normal, and this is played in his usual manner”.]
Quite a performance without any prior rehearsal. The musicians really did a good job under the circumstances.
Imagine if something like this happened today. All the people in the audience would be texting, reading email, updating facebook, and reading news about the assassination.
Wouldn’t be much use in the orchestra performing at all. Things were so different 50 years ago. I wasn’t born until a year after Kennedy died. I have some vague memories of Bobby Kennedy’s assassination.
I’m amazed that the brass and woodwind players could perform without choking up.
They would undoubtedly have played Beethoven’s Third many, many times before. Like most professionals, they were also able to focus totally on their music. Performing this piece would have come almost automatically to them, regardless of the circumstances.
Nowadays, of course, everyone would hear of the assassination much earlier over their mobile devices, and the concert would probably just be cancelled.
I’m not sure having the ability to react almost instantaneously to events is progress. The reason it took so long for CBS (and, I would assume, other networks as well) to report Kennedy’s death (nearly 40 minutes after doctors pronounced him dead) was that the newsroom staffs (Cronkite in particular) wanted official confirmation before they said anything to that effect.
The ingrained habits of opera-goers are apparently hard to shake, even in the most trying circumstances. After the initial gasps of shock, you can hear a bunch of people “shushing” one another.
Yes, yes, i’m sure they were shushing in case Leinsdorf had more news to give them. I just found it somewhat amusing. It’s great historical audio.